Making the leap

Into the water. Pretend water. I bought--oh, my superstitious side is saying I should not mention it, lest I jinx the whole exercise impulse--a rowing machine.

I have so far been very frustrated in my efforts at exercising. Joined a fitness center some years back, but something in the air kicked up my asthma, and I quit. Hard to exercise when I can't breathe. I then signed up with another whose air quality was better, and ended up not using it after a year or two because I took a job whose commute time made it impossible to get to the center either before or after work (the place opened after I left for work and closed before I came home, and as I was 20 miles away from the center, I couldn't go there during lunch). Then, I thought, I can just walk! Walking is good. But then on one of my walks I tripped and broke my foot and sprained my ankle...then proceeded to keep walking on the on my broken foot for two weeks because I thought it was only a sprain. I ended up going to the doctor after it didn't get any better and had to get a cast. That was last year. It still hurts and occasionally gets tingly and goes a little numb if I walk on it for more than ten minutes. Swimming is expensive, and I'm sorry, but I'm not exposing myself in a swimsuit in the shape I'm in right now. (Shudder) Get the idea that I just suck at exercising?

But rowing. That's different. I don't know what it is, but every time I go out in a row boat, I can spend hours at it. Literally hours. I love it. It doesn't hurt my knees. It doesn't hurt my feet. And by the time I'm done, my shoulders and back feel all loose and wonderful, as if I had just had a massage. I feel happy in a rowboat. Every April or so, I go to a women's church retreat by a lake, and I always find some time to go rowing on that lake, for at least an hour, going around the circumference of the lake, and through the middle, going slow, going fast, whatever I feel like doing. There's something about rowing in a rowboat that just makes me feel GOOD.

Now, a rowing machine isn't the same, in that it's not out on the water and I'm not going anywhere. But at least the motions are similar (I got one that supposedly mimics real rowing). Also, maybe there is some kind of DVD or a video I could get or download that is of someone rowing across a lake, and if I put that on the TV, it would give something of the illusion of rowing somewhere. Or, if not that, I could always watch reruns of Buffy or Firefly. Plus the price is right. The cost of 3 months of a fitness center pretty much covers the cost of the rowing machine.

It'll take about 9 days to get it, although maybe more, because I ordered it two days ago, and the rowing machine store only just now e-mailed me saying that it's sending it. And when I went to the web site to track its progress, it said I had just ordered it! Hmm. I feel a bit of foreboding about that. But, with luck, it'll take less than 9 days, and I'll be rowing my way to fitness at last.