Finally, a Little Training

The month of September was very hectic and a little chaotic for me. Due to a number of events, to include but not limited to the illness and death of my stepdad and corresponding drives to Pennsylvania and back, several family visits, and a week-long family reunion last week, my time to get in any workouts has been very limited for about a month.

That changed today. I had hoped to go for a hike, but was feeling pretty worn out from last week’s reunion, which included numerous drives to the Norfolk and Richmond airports to pick up and drop off family members. So driving to the mountains and back today was just not that appealing, despite the beautiful late-summer weather we had.

A reasonable compromise was to do a walk-run in Deep Run Park, not far from my home. There is a nice 1.8 mile trail there, and most of it goes through pretty wooded areas, with some of it near picnic shelters and little ponds. The trail is paved, so is easily used by walkers, runners, bikers, and people pushing baby strollers. There are also some little hilly sections to add to the workout. Later in the season, the leaves will be colorful there, but right now, it is still summer-like and green in the Old Dominion.

I did the trail twice, alternating between about 4-5 minutes of walking and 2-3 of running. This was a good compromise, given my lack of physical activity recently, and felt really good. It is a nice park for a lot of reasons, not the least being the variety of people one sees there. Folks walking dogs, fishing, jogging, biking, pushing baby carriages. Big family picnics. Young – and not so young – lovers holding hands, kissing, and whispering sweet nothings in one another’s ears. Mothers and fathers taking their kids to the lakes. People throwing Frisbees or balls to one another. Budding naturalists looking at plants, birds, and turtles. Little kids playing at the playground and swinging on the swings. People just enjoying being alive on a beautiful day. There is a little bit of everything at Deep Run Park, all of it seemingly peaceful, and it was a nice place to spend 45 minutes in the outdoors, while getting at least some exercise and doing a few miles.

Later, I did a workout for about an hour or so in the gym, lifting some weights, using some of the machines, and doing crunches – especially crunches! After all I have eaten last week at the family reunion – about 50,000 calories a day it seems like – a sense of guilt drove me to do extra crunches on the crunch bench. It was a type of penance for gluttony, I suppose. I set a personal record – 1,300 crunches without stopping. Earlier this year, about 500 felt like plenty, so I am making progress despite slacking off some.

Official training with the team is still about five weeks away, but I am hoping that using today as a springboard, I can get back into a regular workout habit again.