I wanted to boost my workouts – the number and the variety. But I know that I would need accountability around this – saying and doing are two different things. I convinced my partner and some friends to start a challenge with me – 100 days of 100 workouts. We’re on day 12 and the streak lives on.
Rest days are ‘active’ rest days which means walking, yoga and strectching. The motto of the group is get up and move. There are six members with a variety of goals, but the thing we have in common is the desire to be more physcially active.
And I’m loving all the ways were moving – workout dvds, running, swimming, dancing, walking the dog, strength training, stretching and yoga have all been added to our repretoire.
I’m hoping to add spin, swimming, bikram yoga and maybe a little tennis.
Running remains my first love and my nemsis, but adding other exercises means less chance of getting and staying injured.
To that end, I thought I’d give a new machine a try. I’ve been eyeing the stair master for weeks, sizing it up. Can I do it? Should I do it?
Last Sunday the gym was almost empty and I was grateful for that. I was sure I was going to make a fool of myself and the less people actually saw me the better, I surmised. Before walking up to it I said to myself, “Ten minutes, you can do ten minutes E, right?” I reassured myself, that yes, I could do ten minutes, pssh, who couldn’t do ten minutes. “As a matter of fact, not only could I do ten, I could do fifteen!” Oyi.
I took the giant step onto the first step and then the second. I stood for a moment looking at the buttons in confusion as though they were in another language. The start button finally came into focus. I took a deep breath and hit start. It started at a very slow pace – level one, I pushed the button to level two. It felt like walking up a moving escaltor – not bad. I would use it as my warm up.
At five minutes I was sweating. I hit the level up button to three and found myself easily out of breath after about one minute. Okay I said to myself, just another four minutes to go at this level and then back down to two. And then a woman got on the stair master next to me and with no hesitation went up to level six. She went about her workout going from level six to ten, several times. I gave her the side eye, not that she noticed, she was busy playing a game on her phone!?!
I just barely did the five minutes at level three. By then I was dripping in sweat. Finally, I could go back down to level two, whoosh! When I hit the 15 minute mark I stopped and felt incredibly accomplished. I had apparently walked up over 300 stairs and burned 75 calories.
Yup, you read that right – 75 calories.
I mean my tee-shirt was soaked, I was breathing hard and I burned enough calories to eat a small apple. Y.I.P.P.E.E.
Stairmaster 1, Esther 0.
E's Journey 