I did it.

[susandennis]

First of all - last night's excitement.  2:23 in the a.m. more particularly.  The fire alarm goes off.   And keeps going for the next 30 minutes.  I got up and looked out the front door to the hallway - no smoke, no fire.  I went back to bed and turned on the TV to the front door channel.   I was surprised at the number of people who left the building.  Finally I saw the firefighters.  And then finally they turned off the fucking alarm.  And I went back to sleep.

This morning an email from Sherry said that she stayed in bed with the TV on, too.  Lee, on the other hand took her cellphone and hit the street.  The word on the street was that someone on my floor smelled smoke.

On to my next chapter.

I've been thinking about this for a while.  I have no stamina.  And less every day.  You know that use it or lose it thing?  Well, I don't so I have.  I don't want to live forever. I'm not even interested in losing the 125 extra pounds I have.  I am interested in being able to walk downtown and shop around for more than 20 minutes and walk home without fear of falling over and without sore back and shoulders.

Across the street is a gym.  About the time this building opened and we moved in, two women who live here bought the gym.  Tija is a personal trainer and she and Sandy have developed that gym into a well run operation.  We have joked very occasionally about my joining up.  But we all knew we were kidding.  But now I'm not.

I sent an email to their 'info @' yesterday asking if they had any programs or ideas for old, fat people who need stamina.  This morning I got a wonder and thoughtful and sympathetic note from Tija.  She totally gets the problem, the challenge and me and says come on over.  So I'm going to do it.  It's time.  I know why I want to do it.  I know what I want to get out of it.  I can afford it. I have the time.  All the stars are lined up.

She says that the regular starter program included in the monthly fee is 3 sessions. One heath screening and then two with a trainer to get me started.  Then she says that I might want to consider a personal trainer for a while and I think she may be right. 

So... stay tuned...  this could be a very interesting development.

Comments

[saveferris.livejournal.com]

Good for you with the exercise thing!

I keep telling myself I need to get back into a workout routine... I've been telling myself that for 6-7 months now...

[phornax.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I agree with you, it's not the amount of time we have here on Earth, but the quality of the time we have. A healthy body makes for a healthy mind, in most cases.

[canuckgirl.livejournal.com]

Good luck with it! I'll look forward to hearing about how it's going. :)

[pisceandreamer.livejournal.com]

Awesome w/the gym stuff - even better that it's *right* there - wish mine was closer!

[ruralrob.livejournal.com]

Good stuff. Another reno project to be documented?

;-)

[nezbitthecat.livejournal.com]

It wasn't all that long ago when you used to walk all around Seattle and take pictures and post them to Buzznet (http://www.buzznet.com) (remember Buzznet?). You got a pedometer from McDonalds and racked up 6,000 steps on the thing routinely. I could never get mine to go above 75 in a day.

[susandennis]

You have got one scary memory there, dude!!! I still get notes from Buzznet every once in a while. That walking thing worked for a long time and I thought about going back to it. But somehow I could not get there this time. But, I do remember... I started when I got my Treo... walk, snap, send... walk, snap... send.

Those were the days.

6,000 steps, really??? I'll betcha I do 6 these days!

[katbyte.livejournal.com]

Good for you!!! Since we got the dogs and started walking them it helped, but I think what you are doing makes tons of sense. Now, if I could just make myself do it.....

[roadskoller.livejournal.com]

Good for you! Don't kill yourself over there though.

[letmesaythis.livejournal.com]

Good choice, Susan. It sounds like a great place to get started and I wish you the best. I look forward to hearing about your progress and I really, really hope that your efforts will inspire me to do the same!

[bemocked.livejournal.com]

Wow... really wow... but really good WOW!

I didn't see this coming... but I am so happy for you. You'll probably be kinda sore in the next couple of weeks, but then you will start to feel soo energized and good, can't wait to hear all about it!

If you are as gadget/feedback/stats oriented as I am, I highly suggest an HRM (heart rate monitor watch)... it is shockingly interesting to see how un-correlated how I am feeling about how hard I am working (exercising) and how hard my body actually is working can be... gives lots of really good feedback about when it might be a good idea to push harder/farther/faster, then and when to ease up, and it is a nice tool to correlate the effort expended to push hard/fast for a short time, vs a lighter/slower effort for a more sustained period. The lower end ones that will upload to your computer or Polar's (my brand of choice, and the biggest, but there are otherts out there) website are not actually that expensive, and they are really not just for distance athletes... they make many that are specifically for non-athletes working to general fitness and/or weightloss... and filling out the stats log it makes of my exercise sessions is actually quite motivational.