A Dumbbell In A Home Gym

Well, Phooey.

It seems as if just a couple of weeks ago at the most, I was writing this cheerful entry.

And today we visited the community pool for the last time this summer. Already. Damn.

I didn't get nearly enough time there this year; we had a spate of weekends that were either too cool or too stormy for a pool visit, and I didn't go much on weeknights because the pool was invariably taken up with swimming lessons or swim team practice. It seems I'm not going to get away from the swim teams or classes hogging the pools unless we get our own pool, and since our backyard is the size of a postage stamp, that ain't happening. Oh well.

You cannot accuse me of slacking off on the exercise this weekend. I got the afternoon off on Friday and promptly hopped on the subway to ride back to my old DC haunts and walk around Georgetown. I logged about 13,000 steps according to my pedometer.

Saturday morning was too cool to go swimming, so we went on the first bike ride I've been on in ages.

Man. Oh, man. That was painful. But it's something I really needed. As I was chugging along sucking wind and feeling my thighs burn, a voice in my head spoke up: "There's no faking it on the bike. If you get on this thing, you better be ready to work."

And for me, it's true. I suppose that for people who ride hundreds of miles in a weekend, they could do an "easy" 50-miler. I guess I could find a ride that's all downhill ... but then I'd have to ride all uphill on the way home. Which is pretty much what I do anyhow; I never realized until I got the bike that our house is at the highest point of our development. And boy, do I feel it when I'm churning my way home after a long ride.

I can half-ass it at the gym; I can lift weights I know are way too light, or I can just sit on the stationary bike with the difficulty set to the lowest level. As for swimming, I can cut the laps short, or just splash around and do handstands.

But I can't goof off on the bike; even when I'm doing a relatively easy ride on a mostly-flat part of our trail, I can really feel myself working. And again, there's that whole "The way home is uphill" thing.

Anyhow, we went to the rec center and lifted weights on Sunday, and this morning we went on another arduous, ass-kicking bike ride; by the end of it I was so exhausted that it took me two tries to raise my foot high enough to put the kickstand down.

And then we went to the pool this afternoon. I didn't do any real lap swimming, but I "jogged" up and down the length of the pool several times. Because I was determined to have some fun, I also went off the diving board, did handstands, and then simply floated on my back for a little while, enjoying the sun warming my poor sore body while the water buoyed me up.

I still smell like sunscreen and chlorine. I'm going to miss that smell. May 2008 seems like a long, long way off from here.

Notes from a Sunday Morning Bike Ride.

The weekend mornings have been a bit too chilly for a swim at the community pool. But "too cool to swim" generally translates to "perfect weather for a bike ride," so it all works out.

Random observations: If you're on the trail and you hear something crashing through the woods so loudly that it sounds like King Kong is coming for you ... it's a squirrel. They make amazing, ungodly amounts of racket.

If you hear absolutely nothing and just happen to turn your head and realize that you're looking into another pair of eyes ... it's a deer. Even when they've been spooked by a human and they're bounding away for deer life (har!), they're so quiet.

And what I observed last year is still true: The deer don't like pedestrians and will skedaddle if they see you approach on foot, but they don't seem all that bothered by people on bikes. They'll still skitter off if you draw too close to them, but they'll stop running to observe you and your bike from a safe distance. I like to imagine that they're thinking "Huh, there's another one of those creatures with the funny-looking round legs."

Okay, so I'm entering Week 3 of Project "Back on Track". Regular damn workouts, accompanied by significantly restrained and mindful eating.

My weight has responded by soaring. As if I were eating entire extra-large Pizza Hut Triple Heart-Attack Cheese-Stuffed Cheese Crust Pizza With Extra Cheese specials for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

I'm clueless.

My measurements have not changed appreciably (and have actually shrunk a bit around the hips) and my clothes still fit, so I'm not despondent. But it's really unpleasant to step on the scale expecting to see the mid-60s and instead see the damn seventies, and goddamn unfair when I know I've been pretty diligent.

And it's really hard not to mutter "Well, the hell with *this* -- I'm gonna go eat a piece of cake."

Hmph. Stupid scale.

Dumbbells, Bikes, and Bad Naked.

My favorite search string of the week, and possibly of all time: "issues with dumbbells falling through floor." Yeah, gosh, I just hate when that happens. Fear me and my mighty ten-pounders!

(Confidential to the searcher ... I think maybe you might want to switch to a lighter weight. Or lift in the basement. Just a thought.)

So here I am. Thanks for the kind comments and insights on the last entry; I'm glad that resonated with so many people because I wasn't even sure about posting it. I don't want to imply that I never had any problems when I was fat; I'm just tired of fat people always being depicted as depressed, isolated, self-hating losers.

On Saturday, I finally got to go for the first bike ride I've been on in far too long. Good grief, was that hard. The lack of steady bike riding has taken a definite toll on my leg strength and I found myself struggling up hills like never before. It was a good nudge to get myself going back in the right direction with my regular workouts, because I really don't want to lose my cycling fitness.

Last Thursday at the rec center, I used a stationary bicycle as my cardio for the evening. Riding my bike for real on a sunny, warm(ish) morning after slogging along on the indoor bike at the gym reminded me of that point in "The Wizard of Oz" when the movie goes from drab black and white to full-blown Technicolor. I'm actually thrilled that the time is going to change a couple of weeks early; I can't wait to start adding outdoor walks and bike rides to my evening rotation. That is, of course, assuming that the temperature ever climbs back above "Sub-Arctic" here; that's not looking good right now and we're being threatened with even more rassafrackin' snow tomorrow.

And finally, I feel the need to blog about an exercise trend that I really hope does NOT catch on at my local rec center (the following link is Not Safe For Work, folks) ... Naked Sundays.

Okay. I like to think I'm not a prude. I'm certainly not one to fall down in a dainty heap at the merest hint that people have Naughty Bits lurking under their clothing. I don't stress out while I'm in the changing room at the pool.

But as Seinfeld said, there's Good Naked and there's Bad Naked. And naked workouts at the gym are Very Bad Naked. Good lord.

(At least they had to put towels on the equipment.)

Ooops.

I, uh, really didn’t mean to walk away from my blog for a week. It just kinda worked out that way. Sorry ‘bout that.

This past week was hellishly hot and humid, a preview of the summer to come. Every afternoon I’d step outside into heat and humidity that a newscaster from my childhood memorably described as “like a giant dog breathing on you.” And I’d think “Oh, right -- that’s why I always dreaded the onset of warmer weather!” Even when I got inside the air conditioned office or house I’d feel like I was wearing a bodysuit of humidity funk. Yecch. I thought that maybe carrying around a lot less extra poundage might make a difference in my heat tolerance. Nope.

Needless to say, this sapped a lot of my energy and my drive to work out. This wasn’t a banner week and there wasn’t much to write about; my eating actually wasn’t bad (the one good thing about heat and humidity is that it tends to take away my appetite), but some nights I was too drained from the heat to even think about moving. I made a couple of tries at writing entries, but they all came out flatter than day-old beer.

It’s supposed to be back in the mid-70s and marginally less humid for most of this week, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to get back on the workout stick.

God, sometimes it seems like I’ve started off every damn week in 2006 saying that. “This week I’ll get back on track.” “Okay, maybe this week.” “Okay, this week for sure. Really.” “No, really. I mean it this time. Wipe that smirk off your face.”

Sigh.

Oh well. On to some positive stuff: Can I tell you how much I rocked on the bike today? I can? Oh good. I’m conquering hills (small ones, admittedly) that I couldn’t manage in the past. I stayed on the bike and rocked all the hills from our parking lot down to a fairly distant point on our favorite branch of the trail. The weakness I experienced a few weeks ago seems to be a thing of the past, thank goodness.

And my newest and neatest trick?

As of today I can officially bend down, yoink my bottle of Gatorade and water out of the bottle cage, drink from it, and put it back without having to stop the bike (or run into a tree). I mean, it helps if I’m on a relatively flat and straight part of the trail. It also helps if there’s nobody else around so I can wibble-wobble without having to worry about being taken out by one of the Lance Armstrong wannabes who occasionally blast up and down that trail and have little patience with slow and clumsy cyclists who like to gawk at deer.

But darn it, I can do it. I did it several times and only came close to wiping out about two or three times. Or maybe four. It’s progress. Really.

In other news, my husband and I went back to our favorite sushi place. And yet again, the chef treated us to two little California rolls. I was a good sport and ate one. My husband, who’s a vegetarian of the no-meat-no-poultry-no-fish-no-kidding type, was an even better sport and ate the other one so I wouldn’t keep being stuck with all the fish.

I decided that I actually kinda liked the taste of the smoked salmon. Why not? I like smoked cheeses and meats. I’m still not fond of the crabmeat in those rolls; something about it triggers my “yurk!” anti-seafood revulsion.

So, if the chef treats us about eight more times, then according to what I read I should be completely over this fish aversion. We’ll see.

And finally, I’ve jumped on the MySpace bandwagon. I don’t know why. Is it anything more than one big pickup joint? I’ve had the account for more than a year because I needed it to comment on someone else’s blog. But now I’ve started actually using the space. I figure it can be a spot for my non-weight-loss observations. I still have very little idea how everything works over there, but check me out if you happen to be on there.

Big Dork.

So I saw my husband taking pictures of me on Thursday night as I approached him on our trail (he was on foot; I was on my bike, obviously). I got all cocky and stood up on my pedals.

Of course, I have short little stubby legs to begin with and I'm leaning over on my handlebars. So you can't even really see me doing it. D'oh. I like standing up. It's fun. When I've been riding for a while, it's a nice way to give my aching ass a break for a minute without actually stopping and getting off the bike.

We went out on another ride Saturday morning. We rode for damn near ten miles, which is a one-ride record for me.

A thing I should never, ever say to my husband while we're taking a breather: "Hey! Are those bones on the ground over there?" Because it'll turn out that yes, indeed they are. And he will have to pick them up (ew) and examine them. And he'll decide that he simply must take home some particularly creepy bones that look like either ball joints or vertebrae. And because he doesn't have any way to carry them they will end up in your bike bag with your Kleenex and your lip balm, neither of which you will particularly want to use again.

Yes, I know we've all got bones. I kind of prefer them to be inside bodies rather than sharing space with my personal effects, though. Especially because the ones he found are unsettlingly human-sized. I'm getting paranoid that there will be some gruesome murder around here and the police will investigate us because we're the black-wearing Goth-ish freaks on the block, and we'll end up in jail because of those creepy bones.

Oh well. I had another epiphany this morning. It was related to my musings in this entry about my tendency to look for beginner videos even though I've been working out for a while and could surely stand to up the ante.

I've been pedaling along in the same gear combination for quite a while. Today, just to see if I could keep up with my husband more easily if I did so, I increased the tension in the right gear by two increments.

Wow. All of a sudden I was flying along the pavement. I had to keep slowing myself down and braking to keep from smacking right into my husband's rear tire. And when I downshifted to the old lower-resistance gear combo it suddenly felt too easy, as if my legs were just spinning ineffectually rather than propelling me along.

It was a very timely, effective reminder that I need to stop babying myself. I need to remember to keep pushing myself to see what I'm really capable of doing. If I overdo it, I can always back off. But maybe I'll find that I can handle a lot more than I thought I could. That's always a very empowering feeling.

Out of the Rat Race.

The other day my neighbor said to me, "Do you ever get the feeling that we're just all living in one big rat race? You get up, go to work, come home, and don't feel like doing anything until it's time to go to bed, get up, and do it all over again?"

He's a nice guy. He's not usually that much of a downer. I guess he must have had a really rotten day at the office.

But anyhow, no -- I haven't had that "rat race" feeling. Not this week. We've gotten out to our trail twice after work. Monday we walked (that's when the above picture was taken). Tonight I got to ride my bike.

And I'm really laughing at myself and what I thought last autumn when I believed that riding back and forth between Rte. 29 and the main neighborhood drag was doing "the whole trail." Now that we've gotten in the habit of crossing the stream and exploring, it turns out that the little trail we'd been riding and walking for months is one small part of a pretty big spiderweb of trails in our area. And we're still not even close to covering them all. How cool is that? We get a good workout, get to see new sights, and still don't even have to get in the car.

That explains my confusion when I'd read online writeups of what I thought was "our" trail and have absolutely no idea what the person was describing. A Civil War-era railroad stop? On our trail? The hell?

Well, yes. We just hadn't gone in the right direction yet. There is a particularly peaceful, photogenic branch of the trail that goes through the woods and around the stream and leads to what's left of a bridge that was built to carry trains over the stream. (It was abandoned before the railroad was finished; Civil War soldiers used the bridge abutments as shelter and cover.) We rode that trail on Sunday and walked it on Monday night, and I rode it again tonight. My husband elected to walk so he could take pictures of the various wildlife we see out there, so I'd double back now and again to check in with him.

There's just nothing quite like a bike ride after work. By the time I'd passed through our neighborhood and followed the path down to the trail, I felt as if I'd left 25 years of work and worry behind; I remembered what it felt like to be a kid coming home from school, hopping on my bicycle, and getting down to the much more serious business of afterschool playtime.

The weather was warm without being too hot or humid; bluebells have cropped up all over the banks by the creek, adding a touch of brilliant color to trees and grass still washed out from winter. For the most part this branch of the trail seems so secluded that if it weren't for the regular roar of airplanes going to and from Dulles nearby, I could almost forget I'm in the heart of suburbia.

And the deer are back! One bounded right in front of me on the trail tonight.

I swear -- bike rides like the one tonight don't even feel like exercise. I had no idea how hard I'd worked until I got home and realized how damp I was and how hard I was breathing.

The only thing I don't like about the afterwork rides is smelling everyone's dinners when I'm riding through the neighborhood on my way home. That's torture. I don't eat anything big before I go out and I'm usually starving by the time I head back. And someone was grilling chicken tonight. I guess it would have been tacky to invite myself over for a piece, huh?

And a drumroll, please: My husband got me a cyclometer for my birthday in December, but we didn't get it installed and set up until early this year. So now I know that this year I've biked 60 miles so far. I realize that some cyclists can do that and more in one weekend. But for me, that's a big deal.

Yes, I do believe I'm going to like these longer summer days.

Power Lines.

Tonight's new "Sopranos" -- anyone see it? I won't spoil any big developments, but a couple of moments had me cracking up with recognition. There's the scene where Tony weighs himself, looks incredulously at the number that pops up, and starts removing his shoes and then his pants and reweighing himself. (An aside: Does James Gandolfini really weigh 280-odd pounds? Because that's pretty much what I weighed when I started out. Wow.)

One of the actors has dropped a huge amount of weight since the last series, and the writers have dealt with it by turning the character into the stereotypical Annoying as Hell Dieter. He's constantly babbling about his exercise regimen and his eating to characters who couldn't be less interested. Quite the contrary -- most of those characters love their food. I've always liked it that people on "The Sopranos" eat, and eat with gusto. I don't know why, but it makes the characters seem even more real and even less like standard-issue plastic Hollywood dolls.

Anyhow, I asked my husband "I'm not like that Annoying Dieter guy, am I?" He assured me I wasn't. Heh. It doesn't bother me to think that I used to put away as much food as Tony's crew, but heaven forbid I be an Annoying Dieter.

After what seemed like an eternity of cold, chill, and bone-cracking winds this winter, spring hit my area this weekend. It's been amazingly warm; by Friday afternoon I was regretting wearing my leather coat to work. Yesterday we went for a small walk on a trail near my husband's office; I felt perfectly warm in just a T-shirt and my workout pants.

I can barely believe that just a month ago, we were almost ass-deep in snow.

And this morning, we went for a bike ride. I haven't been on my bike since well before the Olympics started; the trail seemed permanently icy and muddy and mushy and it's been too cold recently for me to bear the thought of being out there.

I rode out to the trail with the thought that because this was my first ride in a while and because "C-/D+" would be a very generous assessment of my fitness efforts over the last couple of weeks, I was going to take things ultra-easy. If I couldn't get up hills that used to be simple for me, no big deal. What mattered was that I was doing it at all.

Has anyone else noticed that sometimes when you give yourself permission to take it easy, you actually end up working harder? I surprised myself by getting up a couple of steep-ish hills without even having to go into my lowest-resistance gears, much less get out of the saddle and walk. I must have been doing something right these past few weeks, because my legs don't seem to have lost much strength at all. Perhaps all those walks up the broken escalator at my Metro stop have paid off.

And we set off on what was for me a whole new adventure: My husband carried my bike across the stepping stones that take you to the other side of the creek that carves up our trail. I've done that walk on foot before, but I'm way too uncoordinated to try schlepping the bike over the creek by myself; I can get the whirlies if I look down. (Yes, I know it's silly.) My husband has done this before and has asked me if I wanted to join him the last few times we've been out together. It always sounded like a rough ride, but I felt good and confident this morning and finally agreed to try it.

We rode along the trail on the other side of the creek and eventually made our way to the Centreville Power Lines trail that connects to our little trail. We stood under the power lines, which make a very ominous sizzling, crackling sound, and I eyeballed the trail. It stretched in the distance as far as I could see, with a noticeable upward slope. I groaned a little, envisioning myself walking and pushing my bike along like a doofus while my husband sailed to and fro past me.

That didn't happen. Although I felt a pretty powerful burn in my thighs, I never had to get off the bike. I rode out to where the trail runs alongside the road; after I got tired of braving intersections and getting stuck behind joggers, I turned back.

And the ride back down that trail was pure joy; I sailed down the hill, standing up on the pedals and laughing at the feeling of flying. How had I stayed off the bike for so long? How could I have been so reluctant to get back on this morning?

And I came to an epiphany about my lame exercise efforts: In a couple of weeks, the time is going to change. We'll get that extra hour of daylight in the evenings, and this is going to open up all kinds of exercising options. I'll be able to ride the bike after work, or just walk the trail. Maybe I won't chafe at being on the treadmill when I've got options beyond being stuck in the cold, damp basement gawking at the TV while I'm jogging along.

I was worried about slipping back into my sedentary life, but not anymore. Everything is going to be fine.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies, And Why I Need To Stop Making Them.

This morning was unseasonably warm and glorious, which means one thing: Bike ride. Of course.

My lovely warm snuggly cashmina fleece jersey was in the wash, alas; it had been splattered with mud during my last outing on Monday.

I bit the bullet and pulled out the XXL Terry jersey I got last October (it's the one I was distraught about because it was too damn tight when I got it). I have another shirt I like to use for cycling but it doesn't have the handy back pockets for my keys and Kleenex. I have a bike bag, but I like the jersey pockets better.

The jersey still felt a little too snug, but I decided it wasn't too tight for me to be seen in public in it. It rides up a little when I sit down, but not enough to reveal my ass to the world. (And the world is very grateful for that, I'm sure.)

This jersey is really, really loud. It's got a black background but it's festooned with hearts of neon green, lemon yellow, orange, white, gray, and magenta. It's positively psychedelic, baby. It's probably visible from outer space. I do not blend into the scenery in that sucker.

As I walked around gathering up all my cycling stuff, I looked down at myself in my loud, loud jersey. And something occurred to me. "Y'know, if there's ever a day that I'm going to have a big embarrassing crash on the bike, it's going to be when I'm wearing this honking bright 'Hey, Everybody Look At Me -- I'm A Big Hot-Shit Cyclist!' jersey."

Bet you can't guess what happened next.

Everything started out well enough. I felt good; it was really nice outside; a woman on the trail made a big fuss out of my shirt . "I LOVE that shirt! It's so SEVENTIES!" "Groovy," I said.

At one point in the trail there are a couple of really big puddles. I've been trying to stay to the side of the puddles where they aren't quite as deep, and I pass through them slowly.

I managed them fine on the first two passes over that section.

On the third pass, disaster struck. I edged too far over to the side of the trail. My bike went off the pavement into the muddy muck. I completely lost control of the bike. "Crap. I'm really going to fall," I said as I tipped over, twisted, and fell face-first into the biggest puddle. Splat, and splash!

At least nobody was there to see this, which was truly remarkable as the trail was fairly busy this morning.

My first instinct was to walk myself and the bike home, but as I collected my wits and examined the bike I realized that we were both pretty okay. Very wet, but okay. I did bust out my bike's front reflector, but since I never ride anywhere when it's even remotely dark this wasn't a huge problem. I whipped out my Kleenex, wiped the puddle crud off my face and my glasses as best I could, hopped into the saddle again, and kept riding. Heck; it'd be a shame to waste a nice morning.

The longer I rode, the more I started to find the whole situation very amusing. My mud-encrusted clothes were particularly hilarious to me for some reason. There's something very childlike and un-Nicolelike about riding around covered with mud and dampness. And about picking up and continuing after a big fall.

I rewarded myself with a long hot shower filled with Lush products when I got home.

So today is the day I lost my "fall off the bike" virginity. (I'm not counting the very first time I took the bike out for a ride. There were a couple of tip-overs that day, but nothing like this one.) Phew. Glad I got that one out of the way. I'm sore, but pretty unscathed.

Will Blog For Free Crap.

So how the hell do I get on the list of people cool enough to be mailed free Dannon yogurt? Or, y'know, free anything? "Hey, Nicole -- we hear you're cool. Want to try our free swag?" Me: "Sure! You bet! Got any free bike locks?" See? I'm easy.

Oh well. That's me, always behind the velvet rope looking in.

I went for a bike ride this morning. Ahhhhh. The trail is finally clear enough of ice and squishy patches that I could ride the whole thing without worrying about sinking into quicksand or hitting an icy spot and breaking my neck. I get the occasional mud splatter right up my back when I ride over a puddle, but those just amuse me more than anything. My riding clothes go straight in the washing machine when I get home anyhow. Mud, shmud, I say.

A few weeks ago someone asked me if I'd put my bike in storage for the winter yet. Hmmmmph! Me!? Put the bike away just because of a little cold weather? Just what kind of a sissy did she take me for, anyhow?

Of course, since then we've had lots of rain and snowy stuff, and I've been sick for about a month between the cold and the stomach flu. So much for Little Miss Smug.

The one time I rode over my winter vacation wasn't much fun. The trail was still a mess that day, so I rode alongside the main drag that runs through our town. Though I didn't get in traffic (the way people drive around here scares me enough when I'm in a car; no way am I trying to mix it up with these lunatics on nothing but a bike), I felt oddly exposed and vulnerable and a little frightened riding right by all the whooshing cars. And I kept waiting for some shouted-out-the-car-window witticisms inspired by the sight of my giant spandex-clad ass propped up on a bike seat for the world to laugh at. That, at least, never happened. Or if it did, I never heard it.

But today was very cool. (Literally. And figuratively too.) Today I realized I'd been missing my bike. I couldn't haul myself up the hills as easily as I could when I was riding two and three days a week. That's okay, though. Today I took it a little easy and marveled at how totally different everything looks now that the trees are bare and the creek has risen; it was grand and gray and rushing and a really gorgeous sight. I've experienced that trail in all four seasons in the past year. I think autumn is still my favorite, but there's more beauty in the winter than I would have expected.

Tonight I am tired, but I feel like I earned it.

Why I'm Doing This.

So I've not had the best week, eating-wise. It's not that I was pigging out, exactly. It's more that the food obsession that drove some of the really bad eating habits of my past was starting to creep back into my head.

Something about being just under 200 pounds has me freaked, I think. I'm petrified of seeing the number on the scale go back up so I've been focused on Not Eating, which as we all know tends to bring on an incredible urge to just eat, eat, eat. Or at least it does with me.

The last couple of days were depressing. All of a sudden I felt like I was obsessing over all the wrong things -- the scale; the Don't Eat This, Don't Eat That crap -- after doing so well for so long at staying focused on my overall health. I felt like The Ghost of Failed Diets Past was floating over me.

Needed: A big perspective check.

Got one: This morning, via the bike.

We've been having unseasonably warm weather here and this morning was just divine -- not too hot, not too cold or windy (unlike last week). During every bike ride I attempt at least one thing I've never done before. This time, I rode the entire trail without stopping to get off the bike. Not once. Not even when I passed an adorable plump tabby cat sitting next to a bush and watching me. I also started fiddling with my gears a bit more and came up with a combination that gives my pedaling a lot more power along with the heightened resistance that lets my thighs know they're alive.

I was sailing along taking in all the intense reds and yellows and golds of the autumn leaves and marveling at my sense of increased strength, and that was when it hit me: This is why I'm doing this.

Not for the scale, not for my jeans size; you ain't gonna hear me complain when both those numbers go down, of course, but in the end they're side benefits.

I'm doing this because I like feeling healthy and strong. I like being someone who gets her ass up early on Saturday to go for a bike ride instead of sprawling on the sofa and going back to sleep. I like the renewed energy. I like the feeling of triumph when I push my body to do just that little bit more, and it does it. I like it when I turn down junk food not out of some misplaced sense of virtue but because I want to make eating choices that will fuel my body rather than bog it down.

It's a shame that I had to get to almost 37 years old before I truly appreciated the feeling of pushing my body and taking pride in its response.

But better now than never.