Running - Different Kind of Workout

Monday was the day to test my running legs. Results: they haven't gotten any more powerful recently. Depending on the environment (outside sidewalk or inside running track), I can go between 3/4 mile and a mile before I feel like my lungs are going to explode. Yesterday I felt a bit down because the mileage isn't increasing as fast as I had hoped. Sherry reminded me that I was older and admittedly bigger than I was 20 years ago, so I should cut myself some slack. "Besides," she said. "You weren't able to do even that two months ago." Truthfully, I probably need to lose 50 to 60 pounds before I can experience any real gains in distance. I'll keep working on it.

Since I ran yesterday, I decided to take a different route this morning and try some variety. Time for a little trail walking. Bellevue has a greenbelt park that ties in with a Redmond greenbelt. It's really cool in there, probably the quietest place in the area. About 17 years ago I bushwacked my way over roughly the same route, long before this trail system went in. Sherry says that she and her friends spent a lot of time in these woods as kids; they even had a treehouse and a rope swing. It took a few years for the two cities to integrate the trail system, but once they did the place they created is not only pastoral but gives one the feeling of being far outside the suburbs. Maybe what the Pacific Northwest was like long ago.

The variety of the trail walk felt great on two levels. First, it was something different. Second, it felt ten times better than the last time I walked this trail about 7 months ago. At the other end, the Mother of All Hills which I must walk up in order to get home in a loop. Good exercise. Another activity I tried while on the loop were Lunges. For the last month I've seen people out doing these in the neighborhood. If you have never seen it done, try putting your left foot forward and then gently kneeling on your right knee without holding onto anything. Then move forward and kneel on your left knee. It's like taking a giant step. I didn't know what they were called, so I asked Sherry.

"Those are called Lunges. They really work your leg muscles and Buh-TOXX."

With such a great description, I decided to try them. Initially I was apprehensive about kneeling on my right knee, which took a bad hit when I was a teenager (and yet again 1991). Any extended pressure on the kneecap and I'm literally taking ibuprofen for months to repair it. The first two lunges I did while waiting for Jack's bus were wobbly, and I couldn't lunge in a straight line. Call it a drunk lunge. But after my walk through the trail system and up Mother of All Hills, I did sixteen steps on a linear stretch of sidewalk and was able to go straight. Plainly stated, Lunges kicked my butt.

So I did ten more, and then another eleven with some walking in between.

The feeling after doing 37 lunges? Go up three flights of stairs (like I do every work day), build ten more flights with your bare hands, and then keep climbing. Clearly it works the muscles that may help me get stronger on the stairs, and ultimately increase my endurance while running. So all that talk about how I can't get past one mile of running at a weight far above the two-dollar mark? Well these lunges may just help me push the envelope.

Yay exercise!

"I'll own you yet, Stair Monster."