The Treadmill

I'm not sure how I feel about the treadmill. (I know, what a surprise). On the one hand, yes, it's good exercise, and you can simulate, to a degree, outside conditions, but on the other...I feel like the hamster. Or that I should be generating electricity. In German, there are two different words for a treadmill that's a punishment, and the one at the gym. The first one is a Tretmuehle, literally treadmill, and with mill being in there, implies that maybe this is how grain was milled, when there was no wind or water power. The other one, the one at the gym, is a Laufband, which is a running band, or belt. Also quite literal, but without the overtones of the workhouse. A rare moment where German is more humane than English. Anyway, I decided to start concentrating on the treadmill. In about a year, I hope to go to Paris with my daughter, for her 30th birthday. I want to be able to walk everywhere I want to, once I'm there. The elliptical is lovely, and the recumbent bike will get you what you want, as well, but there's only one where you walk, and that's the treadmill. My trainer had set up a lovely program, with my hitting this heartrate for this long and that heartate for that long, and there wasn't a chance in hell I was going to do any of that. I still have trouble walking any distance without beginning to list, so that wasn't happening. But we had a discussion on Monday, when I was there and I realized that I needed to be doing something, really. So, even though I was sort of destroyed from the other workout, the one with the 10-second planks on the hard bosu, etc, I went and did 35 minutes on the treadmill. And, surprise, surprise, I actually felt good and thought about it during the week. I didn't get back until today and maybe because I wasn't all hyped up from the other workout, or maybe because it's 95 degrees most of the time right now, I didn't have the oomph to get up to 2.5, the way I did before. So I did 2.2 for 40 minutes. And I was impressed! I kept my hands on the sensors, so I could see my heartrate (and it never got above 96, which I think is actually a decent indicator that I probably won't drop dead in Paris) but I wasn't using them for support, either. It always annoys me when I see people running or walking and they're holding themselves up with their arms. Unless someone told them to do that, they're not doing any good. But anyway. So I did that. I managed a whole 40 minutes, without a break. without sitting down on a park bench, without anything. I will say that once I got outside and in my car (where I was very happy to have the iced tea I had bought before) I kept saying, "Fuck me!" but that was partly because it was so hot. And I was so hot. I have great hopes for more walking on the treadmill. I'm not killing myself and I'm actually pretty good about putting up the speed, and my goal, no matter what my trainer says, is endurance. I want to be able to walk a long distance at a measured pace, not do sprints or dashes or any of that, though I'll try those too. I want to be able to walk from Hoyt Street in Brooklyn to 44th and 6th without stopping, including climbing the steps on the Brooklyn Bridge. I want to be able to climb up to the castle in Marburg. I hear Montparnasse has a pretty good hill. While I'm at it, I'd like to climb Mount Royal once more, though probably not in a pair of 3" heels, which is what I more or less accidentally did the first and last time I climbed it. I got a lot of funny looks, too, but come on! It's PAVED! I'll do that, or maybe a half hour, tomorrow, and again on Saturday. Keep at it. Slow and steady wins the race, or so they tell me.