Sunday - The Ascension

I had a rough night last night and couldn't fall asleep until around 2AM so I didn't get to the gym until around 8:15AM. Must have been the hockey game a buddy took me to last night or the sense of victory I felt at achieving my trainer's goal yesterday.

Today I decided to do a lighter type workout without the pace of yesterday. I headed to the recombinant bike, plugged in forty minutes and start doing my time. There are already two girls (I'm on delicate ground, perhaps I should call them ladies, because I'm certain they are - sigh - look they are fun and perky so girls it is) in there, one on a treadmill and the other on a stairmaster. Both are at the end of their workout and the girl on the stairmaster is yakking to her pal sweating away in that yummy way women do because of that additional X chromosome. She's really working but can hold a conversation. I'm just putting in time and kind of wondering about the stairmaster, which everyone and their brother reports is a real mother...! (you seem to develop a mild case of Tourette's the longer you hang out in the gym).

So I'm quizzing her about it and she's telling me that when she first started on it she could only do about two minutes and said if I'm going to try it I shouldn't be surprised if I only go that long, "One to three minutes." Now this girl has been doing this exercise crap for years and I'm paying attention, she's a godsend filled with information. I'm bored on the bike, just hammering along, getting through it. She's telling me she fights that by going ten minutes on three different machines to combat boredom. I'm not ready to be a triathlete yet figuring I'd have a total cool down before figuring out how to get my heart rate up on the next device from 'ze camps.'

I ask her how she feels about the stairmaster?

"Oh, I hate it! I don't know how these things calculate calories but when I'm on this I just sweat much more than when I'm on the other machines but they say I burn about the same number of calories. I don't know what to believe on the calorie counters."

Now I'm fairly intrigued. This machine is working this girl the way the elliptical initially worked me. I'm all about the heart rate right now, until the lifting starts and if I can get my heart rate up faster then I won't have to go as long getting the rate up. Hmmm.

She finishes up and heads out with her pal. I pedal along, here's the chart for that one:

You can tell I was doing intervals by the sawtooth look of the graph. I do the cool down and then start circling the stairmaster. I decide, "What the heck" and climb up on the thing. They look like this and the exercise is a lot like going up a down escalator.

If Spotted RUN Screaming From the Room

You have to walk on the steps to even program the thing or you'll slide to the bottom and fall off. Probably some rite of passage. I pick 'Manual Level 1' and then it's the usual questions, enter age, weight, cup size, blah blah blah and then, "Enter minutes 1-99"

I enter "2"

The machine says, "5"

I enter "2"

The machine says, "5"

FINE!

The stairs start moving and I start going up it at this really anemic pace. I up the level to two and the stairs move faster, the machine is also babbling about 'Floor Level One' or some nonsense and I'm offended about "floor" anything and up the level to three, then four, then five, and then OH MY GOD!

I'm seriously working here I'm about a minute in and already somewhere in zone four and I'm sweating in the most unattractive manner. Its just pouring out of me and I can feel my heart rate climbing, just like me, one step at a time. Suddenly I lose three minutes of my life, I can tell you nothing of what happened in that time span. Nothing.

I snap out of it around minute four. I'm definitely anaerobic, my water bottle is empty and the Garmin is saying I'm in zone 5.2 or something and I'm gasping for air and glancing around like a trapped animal. There is no way I'm not doing that last minute! I trudge on not even thinking to lower the level, there is no thought at all, just finishing this thing. My heart is hammering and unexpectedly, I'm done. Five minutes, my ass totally handed to me.

The machine starts a five minute cool down routine. SCREW THAT. I get off that nightmare and stagger around the gym in a weird anaerobic daze. Here's the chart of that little preview of hell:

I go in the sauna and sit for fifteen minutes or so before noticing that I forgot my towel. Ewwwwww! I grab the towel and get some paper towels, soap them up and clean off the bench. Then I shower, and then I weigh.

231 pounds.

I've lost six pounds in the two weeks of starting this idiocy. Now I'm not going to get into some debate about water loss and I know these are the 'easy' pounds glares at stairmaster so lets just say I believe I'm losing weight and leave it at that :-)