I am square into middle age, struggling with all the middle aged male stuff. The current struggle of focus is weight and exercise. Two years ago I was running five eight and half minute miles Monday through Friday. I could do three sets of fifty push-ups and I was making improvements in sit-ups. Pull-ups have always been my nemesis. I can do, like, three. A variety of events in the past two years have made it difficult or impossible to maintain the regimen. So, today I’m over weight, can’t run a block, and the only time I do anything even remotely resembling a push-up, I have to sit down and rest for twenty minutes to recover.
Wednesday I went skiing and was sorely reminded of the sorry state of my physical condition. So, yesterday I got motivated to go out and start doing something about it. I have a course that I run that starts here at the house but it’s a little too hilly for my sorry butt in its current state. So I drove over to West Cliff drive. Yesterday I ran three miles. Well, actually I ran about a half mile and walked, panting and weezing, two and a half miles. 33 minutes to do three miles. Three eleven minute miles? There are people who use walkers that can go faster than that! OK, but the important part is I was out there. Couple or three weeks and I’ll be back up to five miles. Three or five weeks after that, I’ll have it back down under nine minutes. All right, I can do this.
This morning I get up, grab my clothes and head down stairs to dress being mindful not to wake the sleeping wife. Now, we have a rather odd stair case in our house that wraps round in a half circle only it’s a square. There are two landings that facilitate ninety degree turns in travel. Old man that I am, I managed the first two flights without serious strain or injury and then my luck ran out. Took the first step in the last flight of stairs, slipped and landed left butt cheek square on the last stair in the flight.
Initially more startled than anything I sat there taking inventory. The fall was pretty frightening but it didn’t seem that I had seriously hurt anything. I got up and started doing the manly “walk it off” thing. My wife, whom I was trying so hard not to wake, comes down wondering what it is going on and then wondering if I’m OK. I decided I am too old for all this health and fitness crap. I went back to bed.
Aloha
[posted with ecto]
Technorati Tags: humor, middle-age
Ah come on smittie, your just going to give up? I see people far older than you walking up and the stairs by the cement ship, one guy had to be 65+ did something like 16 times up and down, now if he do that, I’m sure that you can do a little bit of exercise.
Chris Nestlerode