It's raining here in Boston today, so I almost postponed my planned exercise... but decided to use the elliptical instead. Since our lab exercise trains people for (some) of its money, I do have access to a reasonable array of equipment... however, I've never enjoyed exercising in a gym environment and pretty much hate treadmills. On the other hand, in 10 years of massive sloth I missed the invention of the elliptical and was sort of curious about why people love it so much... and more importantly I didn't want to set a precedent of postponing scheduled exercise.
Turned out OK. Glen showed me how it works, told me the settings that he and my boss Andy use, made sure I could use it without killing myself, and left me to my own devices. I tried a resistance of 6(units?), which Glen said was reasonable, but that was killing my flabbiness in no time (~5 minutes before my quads were cursing my name)... so I dialed it back to the more namby pamby number of 2, so that I could keep it up for 20 minutes. I liked all the feedback... heart rate, watts, etc... but it is still boring as all get out to run in place in a sterile room. Listening to music made it better, but I've always preferred the more Zen experience of the sound of my own breathing and the sights of terrain passing by.
Regardless, I'm quite glad I decided to try it out, since it has proved to be a perfectly acceptable alternative to running in slop.
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