View from the Treadmill

I had a pretty good workout this morning. I do try not to compare my abilities to others', really I do, because it just discourages me. Maybe I’m finally accepting middle-age limitations though because today I was able to laugh at this observation.

While walking on the treadmill, I face a brick and pebble courtyard, which this morning was covered with ice. First, a twenty-something woman bounced across the courtyard. Her long brown hair flipped and curled behind her in the breeze. She smiled and gazed straight ahead. Perched in front of her like a parrot on her left forearm was an open laptop computer. Not once did she look down at the ice she sped across.

A few minutes later, a forty-something woman plodded flat-footed, carefully, head down, eyes glued to the risky pavement surface. She, too, carried a computer, closed, safely zipped inside a padded laptop case clutched tightly to her chest.

I wondered how a sixty-something (me) might cross the courtyard today. I’d probably also eagle-eye every step in spite of the spiked ice-cleats strapped to my shoes. And I’d have the laptop in a padded backpack and wish I weren’t too vain to buckle a pillow to my butt. Oh, did I mention knee pads and helmet? (haha)

Did I witness a contrast in age abilities, perhaps just levels of body confidence or physical fitness, or what? I don’t know, but shortly after I thanked God I hadn’t flown off the back of the treadmill at 4.5 mph and it was time for me to adjust the speed back to a more confident and age-appropriate 3.5, I dismounted. As I limped away, I glimpsed the treadmill readout of the very fit thirty-something woman next to me: 6 mph. Since she’d just mounted the machine a few minutes earlier, I wondered if that was just her warm-up speed.

Oh well, I am pretty pleased with my workout, and my whole body feels wide awake. This is the body I’m in, and I’m taking care of it. And I don’t want to be any of those other women. So there.

Reality Check

I warm up, starting the treadmill at 2.5 mph, then 3, then 3.5, then leveling off at 4 mph for the next 45 minutes, until cooldown. Toward the end today, I'm feeling rather smug about my accomplishment, when into the gym bounces a ponytailed high school girl with no cellulite or wrinkles ~ anywhere. I can see this because she is wearing really short running shorts and a tight tank top. If I see tanned skin that smooth in a magazine, I take comfort knowing the photo has been retouched. But here is Missy in all her un-PhotoShopped, youthful glory. Thank God I wore heavy blue jeans today, so only I know what's jiggling. Next to her, I have a reality check: My little "pooch" is more a paunch, less a Tinkerbell poking its teensy black button nose out of Paris Hilton's Prada handbag, more an entire L.L. Bean canvas tote bulging with Twinkies.

In addition, my cheeks look like they've just been stung by whole hives of poisonous bees. Missy does not look at me with alarm, as most adults do when they see my aerobically puffed, red face. She's probably too young to worry about anything more than her next math quiz, let alone some old lady collapsing while simply walking. She smiles sweetly at me as she hops up on the next treadmill. When I hear a loud pound-pound-pound, I cannot help but glance at her machine's readout. She has begun her warm-up at 6 mph. Six miles per hour! In a few seconds, the pounding gets faster. Now she's at 7.5 mph!

I amuse myself by recalling once in a while in the past when I've increased my speed to 5 mph, it quickly became more of an arm exercise holding tight to the handles so the conveyor wouldn't shoot me off the back of the machine. After 30 or so seconds at 5 mph, just after one lung lodged in my throat and just before my arms got yanked out of my shoulder sockets, I'd slowed back down to 4 ~ still clinging to the handles though. Missy, however, is not holding on to anything. She runs at 7.5 mph with gay abandon, ponytail swinging to her strides.

Laughing at the contrast and I admit, at her wonderful freedom, which I too must once have had, though I no longer even believe photos of me as a smooth-skinned teen, I disembark the treadmill and turn it off. I ask her if she'd like me to reposition my big floor fan to blow on her. "You don't look like you need it," I add with admiration. She laughs and nods, yes, she'd like the fan. Leaving the gym, I wonder with some pleasure if perhaps she nodded because she was too winded to speak. :-)

Born with No Backside

More musings from the treadmill. Well, hey, my brain has time to wander all over the place between desperate glances at the calorie readout.

Between 0 and 100 calories, I think about how glad I am I dragged myself to the gym today. A review of some of my lamest excuses for past laziness follows. Here's the stupidest: I don't want to make my derriere any smaller since I've never had much of one to begin with. (Never mind about la rotundite de la cinquantaine, the roundness of the fiftieth year, that has been ballooning in front of my derriere for a decade now.) Another dumb one: I don't want to push myself too much ~ what if I strain a muscle? And the classic: I don't feel like exercising.

Between 100 and 200 calories, I'm still glad I came, but I'm aware I'm in unfamiliar territory. Every twinge in my knees tempts me to quit. Every few minutes, I reach for my water bottle and towel. I think about stewardship of the one thing God gave me first ~ well, second, after a soul ~ my body, no backside and all. I am getting back to the basics. Each thump of my shoe and of my heart reminds me how far I've let those basics slide.

Between 200 and 300 calories, I am intentional about taking deep breaths. I've sustained a training heart rate for more than 40 minutes. Though I was panting earlier, now I'm breathing deeply, fully, taking more air into my lungs. I can feel my heart's capacity expanding. I think about Jabez's prayer in 1 Chronicles 4: Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain. I wonder what God's plan might be for my expanded heart. I hope better health. I hope stroke prevention. I hope larger love and life.

300 calories ~ whoopie, I'm outta here. Right now, I'm pretty pleased (glowing actually) with 300. But just as I stretched to reach this goal, I'll want to set a new goal soon.

View from the Treadmill

Light rain puddles in the brick, gravel, and grass courtyard serving as playground for the school outside the gym window. Inside, my shoes rhythmically thump the treadmill facing outside. About 100 oh, maybe fourth- or fifth-graders burst from school doors for morning recess and scatter throughout the area. Most wear school-bus-yellow slickers, Facebook-logo-blue ponchos, or summery jackets. Some sport rubber galoshes, but most wear athletic shoes, some with glittery laces. I wish my childhood had included purple-flowered, pink galoshes. And why didn't Keds think up glittery laces back in the fifties?

One boy kicks a large blue ball into the gym window. Boom! (Thankfully, no glass breaks.) I don't think the kids can see inside, or maybe they just don't look. Certainly, however, they can see the window is glass. After one boom, the boy joins about half the kids for a massive soccer scramble on the grass beyond the courtyard.

In the closer, pebbled area, a weathered gray bench under a tree sees quite a bit of action. First, a small girl parachutes from the bench with her black-and-white-flowered umbrella open. Then a small boy ~ apparently not wanting to imitate Mary Poppins ~ jumps up and down on the bench while poking his open black umbrella into a tree branch above. His aim seems to be to knock down some dangling seed pods. The wind, however, turns parachute into bowl, and the boy futilely jabs the umbrella sideways in the air and jumps off the bench to try to fix it another way. Later, a very tall girl strides over to the bench, steps up on it, calmly reaches up and grabs a handful of seed pods, steps down, and tosses the twirlies to the wind.

Meanwhile, two very slender girls, walking with dainty ballerina steps under a doll-sized, pink, ruffled parasol, repeatedly circle the playground perimeter, as if on a track. Deep in animated conversation, they seem oblivious to surroundings.

My heart goes out to one sad-eyed girl gazing at the ground while lagging 10 paces behind two girls zigzagging around with a string between them. When the two girls stop, Lonely Girl stops right behind them but doesn't look up. They don't look at her. Then they move on. This scenario repeats so many times, I'm screaming from the treadmill, "Look at her! Smile at her!" (Thankfully, I'm alone in the gym.) One girl smiles at Lonely Girl and gives her the string. Then the three of them chase each other around, laughing. I can see that when one of the two girls chases, it's a light, breezy ha-ha-hearted game. But when it's Lonely Girl's turn to chase, despite her smile and flying glittery shoestrings, it's a heavy-hearted hoping game.

A boy comes close to the gym window, positions his galoshes inside brick outlines, cranes his neck downward, and stares ~ for a long time. I am surprised he does this when he could splash in the puddle right next to him.

When the drizzle stops and umbrellas fold ~ except for the still-circling, ruffled, ballerina parasol ~ butterflies come out. Poncho-ed arms poke out to the sides, and kids fly, flapping yellow and blue wings. Swooping and soaring, they run willy-nilly, gleefully weaving among red, khaki, pink, and purple playmates. Next thing I know, several teachers have strung the rainbow into straight lines to file back into school.