Getting in shape
One thing that going to the Ring Cycle last month showed me is what horrible physical condition I'm in. When I used to go to the opera in San Francisco, I had a habit of circling the opera house during the intermissions. I'd take the stairs up to the top, walk across to the other side, down the stairs to the basement, back across to my side, then up the stairs back to my level. Sometimes I'd make the circuit two or even three times in one intermission. I'd get a little breathless, but it was no problem. I liked stretching my legs during the intermission, giving myself a little workout to make it easier to sit through the next act without too much fidgeting.
I decided to walk the circuit during one of the intermissions last month, and I could barely finish. By the time I was back to my level, my leg muscles were screaming, and I was panting for breath. Didn't try that again.
I haven't been exercising regularly since last fall, when the weather got bad and I couldn't run around the house any more because of the mud and snow. I've been well aware that I needed to start again, but just haven't been able to get myself motivated.
So. When I signed up for another opera vacation in San Francisco this November -- three operas in one weekend! -- I decided I'd better get off my butt and start exercising, so I'd be in shape for the trip! For now, I've started walking again. I walk about two miles almost every day, up or down my road and back. I feel better already, I'm sleeping better and am less tired all the time.
The problem right now is the heat: it's reaching the mid-80s every day, and it's fierce high desert heat, with very little shade. It's not easy getting out there to walk in heat like that.
Well, you might say, just get up early and do your walk before it gets too hot! Nope, doesn't work. I'm not an early riser, there's no way I can make myself get up early enough every day to go out and walk before the day starts to heat up (which is around 9 am). I've tried. All I end up doing is making myself exhausted from lack of sleep. And then I'm too tired to exercise, so I start blowing it off, and then I'm back where I started.
So, what about waiting until the sun goes behind the mountain and it starts to cool off? Well, yes, the temperature's better in the evening, but that's when the bugs come out, and you get attacked by mosquitoes and flies and gnats and everything else. Also no good.
So I've been going out generally around 11 am, wearing my wide-brimmed sunhat and using lots of sunscreen and tying a water-soaked bandanna around my neck. I'm only out for around 40 minutes or so, and so far it's not too bad. But the sun saps my energy, and sometimes I feel like my walk just wears me out.
(In the winter, it's a whole different set of problems, when the road turns to mud and ice and snow and is too difficult to walk on. And the weather here seems to like to jump straight from summer to winter and back, without much in between. We had snow here in the first week of June. By the end of the month, it was in the 90s every day. Spring was about a week and a half. Autumn tends to be about the same.)
I don't really know what else I could do. I've thought about getting a gym membership, but the gyms around here are kind of limited, and anyway, I don't really want to drive into town every day just to do forty minutes on a treadmill. Add in an hour or more to drive back and forth, get ready, clean up afterwards, and it would end up taking as much as two hours a day to go to a gym. Besides, that wouldn't be a solution in winter when I'm snowed in, anyway.
I've thought about buying some sort of home exercise equipment, but the problem with that is that, being off the grid, I'm very limited in how much electricity I can use. Most treadmills I've seen use way too much electricity for my system to handle. There are manual treadmills, but I had one once and found it unusable. Ended up taking it to the dump. Maybe a manual stationary bicycle? I don't know. I just know I need to do something to stay in shape, but I don't know what.
For now, I'll just keep walking in the heat, and hope I can come up with something else when winter rolls around.
I decided to walk the circuit during one of the intermissions last month, and I could barely finish. By the time I was back to my level, my leg muscles were screaming, and I was panting for breath. Didn't try that again.
I haven't been exercising regularly since last fall, when the weather got bad and I couldn't run around the house any more because of the mud and snow. I've been well aware that I needed to start again, but just haven't been able to get myself motivated.
So. When I signed up for another opera vacation in San Francisco this November -- three operas in one weekend! -- I decided I'd better get off my butt and start exercising, so I'd be in shape for the trip! For now, I've started walking again. I walk about two miles almost every day, up or down my road and back. I feel better already, I'm sleeping better and am less tired all the time.
The problem right now is the heat: it's reaching the mid-80s every day, and it's fierce high desert heat, with very little shade. It's not easy getting out there to walk in heat like that.
Well, you might say, just get up early and do your walk before it gets too hot! Nope, doesn't work. I'm not an early riser, there's no way I can make myself get up early enough every day to go out and walk before the day starts to heat up (which is around 9 am). I've tried. All I end up doing is making myself exhausted from lack of sleep. And then I'm too tired to exercise, so I start blowing it off, and then I'm back where I started.
So, what about waiting until the sun goes behind the mountain and it starts to cool off? Well, yes, the temperature's better in the evening, but that's when the bugs come out, and you get attacked by mosquitoes and flies and gnats and everything else. Also no good.
So I've been going out generally around 11 am, wearing my wide-brimmed sunhat and using lots of sunscreen and tying a water-soaked bandanna around my neck. I'm only out for around 40 minutes or so, and so far it's not too bad. But the sun saps my energy, and sometimes I feel like my walk just wears me out.
(In the winter, it's a whole different set of problems, when the road turns to mud and ice and snow and is too difficult to walk on. And the weather here seems to like to jump straight from summer to winter and back, without much in between. We had snow here in the first week of June. By the end of the month, it was in the 90s every day. Spring was about a week and a half. Autumn tends to be about the same.)
I don't really know what else I could do. I've thought about getting a gym membership, but the gyms around here are kind of limited, and anyway, I don't really want to drive into town every day just to do forty minutes on a treadmill. Add in an hour or more to drive back and forth, get ready, clean up afterwards, and it would end up taking as much as two hours a day to go to a gym. Besides, that wouldn't be a solution in winter when I'm snowed in, anyway.
I've thought about buying some sort of home exercise equipment, but the problem with that is that, being off the grid, I'm very limited in how much electricity I can use. Most treadmills I've seen use way too much electricity for my system to handle. There are manual treadmills, but I had one once and found it unusable. Ended up taking it to the dump. Maybe a manual stationary bicycle? I don't know. I just know I need to do something to stay in shape, but I don't know what.
For now, I'll just keep walking in the heat, and hope I can come up with something else when winter rolls around.