ammogirl

You know, I consider myself a fairly fit person, cardio-wise.  I mean, I do at least 60 minutes of cardio six days a week, and I do different things: run, power walk, bike.  I also lift free weights, and have various other routines I do, because although I know y’all will think I’m looney for it, I LIKE working out, and enjoy finding new ways to challenge myself and my body. 

Now, because I have been getting up at the crack of freaking dawn, and it’s just wayyyy too dark for my wild imagination to even THINK about using my path, I’ve been working out at the gym almost exclusively lately.  So this morning I thought I’d switch up my routine with a round on the ol’ elliptical.  Of COURSE, it did not go smoothly.

My first problem with that damn machine occurred with my first "step": I could NOT, for the life of me, figure out how to get it to work.  I was pulling and pushing, and forcing and cussing, but…nothing.  One little ellip, then…dead in the water.  Finally, after a few starts and stops…success!  Ellip ellip ellip went my legs, but even though it SEEMED like I had it down, I still THOUGHT it felt a little…odd.  I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, until I glanced over at my reflection in the window and realized I was going backwards.  Okay, easy fix, right?  I mean, all you have to do is go forward, right?  Well, for crap’s sake, that’s what I thought too, but then I spent the next two minutes thinking, "Forward.  Move your leg…NO.  Move it…TREENA.  FORWARD…WTF!  FORWARD!"  Because once you are going on that thing, it’s so hard to break your momentum, BESIDES the fact that I am totally uncoordinated to begin with, and the whole arm/leg synchronized movement thing is almost beyond me.  To switch it up once I finally got going?  Nearly impossible.  Finally, at around the 5 minute mark, I finally settled into a steady, FORWARD moving pace.  I felt pretty cool, and at the very least, I’m sure I provided a good spot of entertainment for the other people in there. 

Anyway, before today, I have never used one, because I will admit: I get tired of hearing everyone RAVE about them and how great the workout is.  "Oh, PUHLEASE!" I think to myself, when somebody starts in, "THAT machine canNOT be that freaking tough!"  And….wrong.  Also: more wrong than you can imagine.  Ohhhh elliptical trainer, I hate you so.  You guys, I never went above LEVEL ONE.  Even if I COULD have loosened my death grip on the hand things (I thought I would fall off, LAUGH AND DIE), I STILL wouldn’t have gone above level one, because that thing kicked my ass SO HARD.  I was totally unprepared for this.  So, I stopped after 15 minutes.  WHAT?  Thursday is LIGHT cardio day, not nearly die from LEVEL ONE exhaustion day.  So I wiped that damn machine down, gave it a parting glare, and moved on to my old friend the treadmill.  TOMORROW though…ohhhh ho.  Tomorrow is heavy cardio day.  That stupid elliptical stupid trainer is going DOWN.  Oh yes.  I’m making it to level two. 

John is meeting with a realtor Thursday to talk about selling our house.  I’ll admit, it’s exciting, because of the reason behind selling (moving to Germany) but definitely sad.  We love that house so much, and so many memories were made in the short time we lived there.  I’m almost glad I have been here in Korea so long, because it won’t be as hard for me here, as it would if I were actually living there when we sold.  Anyway, wish us luck; the housing market in our area has cooled recently, but hopefully she’ll have a promising outlook…we aren’t so much concerned with how much it sells for as how quickly it goes, you know?  Awwww, bye, house!

Auf Wiedersehen!!