Today is my birthday, when I often I reboot my new year's resolutions, and so I made a special point of going to the gym this afternoon. I had a pleasant lifting session, and afterward I decided to hop on the treadmill and run some intervals.
This decision was prompted by the book I just read, after it was mentioned by my friend Angela in a recent comment. It's called Next Level [affiliate link], and it's about fitness at midlife. I liked it a lot. I was especially taken by their recommendation to focus heavily on intervals, rather than moderate intensity longer distance efforts.
There were two barriers to doing an interval workout right after lifting. One I knew about in advance: I hadn't taken my beta blocker. "It will be fine," I told myself. Short little intervals, plenty of recovery time. So I climbed on a treadmill for the first time in forever (kind of like Anna, who also failed to anticipate trouble ahead), and warmed up with a brisk walk.
I cranked up the treadmill speed for interval #1 and immediately discovered barrier #2: I had dressed for lifting, not running, and the bra situation is different. Less confining, because there's no bouncing around in the weight room. "Short little intervals," I told myself. "You can do this." But there was an immediate cry of "FREEDOM!" from the chestular region, kind of like Aretha belting it out in the Blues Brothers. I persevered through the interval and recaptured my escapees. I took a minute to catch my breath, and jacked up the speed again.
My escapees did not want to be recaptured. RESCUE ME, they cried as they made another break for it. At this point I was committed to finishing the first set of intervals, and I just hoped that my reassembly maneuvers were not too conspicuous. The escapees would untrammel themselves, and then I would re-trammel them when the clock ticked past the 30-second mark, like a weird and stressful dance. I kept attempting to rearrange things discreetly, though in hindsight it does not seem very likely that I succeeded.
Maybe, I thought to myself, maybe now that I have warmed up a little my stride will be smoother and less bouncy. "Did you hear that in there?" I asked the mutineers. "Smoother and less bouncy!" (All the normal middle-aged ladies negotiate with their breasts at the gym.)
They sang back the very second the treadmill sped up again. "We want to break free," they crooned, like a better-endowed version of Freddie Mercury. "Is this really NECESSARY?" I said with a certain disgruntled emphasis. By this time they knew what was coming. Like the people singing "Freedom is coming!" they got louder and more certain until, by the end of the last interval, I couldn't take any more of the clamor.
The book says I should work up to three sets of intervals, but I figured two was plenty for today.
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