When exercise is dangerous

Experts recommend finding an exercise schedule that works for you and that you can actually follow. After much trial and error, the Hero and I have discovered just that. We now keep a regular workout schedule at our local Y, consisting of about 6 weeks of faithful attendance and exercise followed by a couple of months (give or take) of slacking.* We find that this alternating of working out, not working out does the trick for us. It helps us meet our fitness goals, the main one being basically to not experience too much pain.*

Sometimes, however, despite our best efforts, this goal is thwarted. The other night, for instance, as we headed to the car after our workout, I suddenly developed a cramp in my right foot. Rather than ride home very uncomfortably, I told the Hero I would walk around the parking lot until it worked itself out. He waited in the car, taking advantage of my absence to listen to something very loud on the radio.

I circled the car, the foot felt better, and I headed to the passenger side door. The cramp hit again. Around the car I went a second time, with the same result. Then a third time.

I tried not to think about what anyone who was watching might be thinking, or if someone that very moment was calling security. "Yes, there's, um, a woman in the Y parking lot doing laps around a car with a guy inside."

But if I was lucky, they would simply conclude that I was too cheap to join the Y and use the elliptical.

When I finally returned to the car after my third circuit, the Hero was relieved. “I was afraid you were going to march around the car seven times and then blow a trumpet,” he said.

That clinched it. Clearly, it was just too dangerous for us to continue working out. Time to enter our second phase of the exercise routine: slacking.

________

*Not even thinking about exercising.

**To be fair, the Hero is more into workout pain than I am.