Tis that time of year

I was in a Tarjay or Target last night and right on cue the exercise stuff was on display where last month the Christmas junk was being sold. There was rubber bands that you were supposed to hook up someway so that when you walk you swing your arms, a weight belt you wear around your waist while walking and ankle weights. One thing that perplexed me, a DVD on how to walk.....Don't we already know how to walk?
Amazing to me how much junk is out there for sale to the culpable and those over the age of 30 who look in the mirror and no longer see the person they were a mere 10 years ago. Folks you are getting older and you ain't seen nothing yet.
Here I am 63, do not smoke or drink booze very much and still able to pick up an 80 pound bag of dry concrete and carry it 100 feet. I can still lift large 100 pound slabs of flagstone and place them into a flagstone patio.
Once upon a time ago I was one of those denizens of the indoor prairie dog towns they call cubical offices. Cubical sweet cubical as they say. Sitting on your butt stairing at a computer screen for 8 to 10 hours a day can do terrible things to one's back, knees, stomach and wrists, not to mention your mental attitude.
We did have a weight room attached to the office I worked in and most mornings I would spend a half hour on the tread mill, lifting free weights, running up imaginary flights of stairs on the stair lifts and even did a stint with an arrobics instructor. She was an Amazon, much worse than some of the Marine Drill Instructors I had in boot camp. I thought that working out 30 minutes aday should have been enough but was it.
Physical fitness is a multi billion dollar a year industry that seems to florish in January of each year as the people who have shunned mowing their own lawn or walking up flight of stairs at work, get religion. Physical fitness is like dieting in that we will do it gang busters for a short time and then very slowly other obligations come up or we pull a muscle. Usually about a month after we start some form of personal enhancement program we have other obligations that take the place of what once was our most important focus in life.
I was once told by someone as to why they did not want to do weight lifting, because after you quit your muscles turn to fat and you get all soft. I have news for you all who think this way, muscle and fat tissues are seperate units in the human body. Just as you can not turn muscle into fat you can not turn fat cells into rippling muscles.
There are several weight loss commercials on television now as they have always been showing the before and after photos of people. Ever notice that the before picture shows a beer belly and the after photo shows a six pack abs? No matter how much weight you loose you will not gain rippling killer six pack abs. The only way you can gain a rippling mid section is by exercise.
Running is a great way to loose weight but in my case I would start with the 5 minute run and add 5 minutes to my weekly run each week on my way to running a marathon after 12 months. The problem is that if you try to push yourself too much you will pull muscles and when you do that you end up having to sit on the side lines as they say. The best running program is one where you start slow and add to your weekly runs slightly but each week add just a little extra time. Funny thing about running is that as you improve your endurance your speed creeps up as well and you find after awhile you are able to run forever. After 4 weeks instead of running 15 minutes for the week you should be up to 1/2 hour and you should be running 1/2 to 1 mile further. The problem at this point is that it seems like you are progressing too slowly and when you come to your scheduled end of your training you tell yourself I can go a little further what harm can it do. Shin splints, tendenitis, pulled muscles and burn out comes in at this point.
If a person wants to get into a training program for some form of physical activity talk to an expert first or read a book on the subject. If you are over 40 years old and have not worked out or done anything more strenuous than channel surfing for the past 20 years, keep in mind you can not start where you left off 20 years ago.
Amazing to me how much more work out clothing there is for women then there is for men. But then again retailers sell more women's clothes than men's duds.
Back in the days when I was running in 5K, 10K and half Marithans I would wear a pair of cotton shorts, a cotton T-shirt and a pair of $50.00 running shoes to the races and of course there was always those who showed up wearing the $500.00 pair of shoes, $100.00 professional running shorts that looked like the Colorado State flag and the $200.00 racing shirts. No matter what activity one gets involved in it seems there are some people who will go all out and buy only the best stuff.
I never placed in the top ten percent of the racers but it was fun and I was able to tell myself I can still do it. I still have a coffee cup from the Governors Cup 10K race in Denver from Sept 25, 1994 but the T-Shirt is long gone. Some of my favorite races were the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Colorado half Marathan, the 4 mile run up Lookout Mountain near Golden Colorado and the numerous races in City Park Denver. Then there was the 12.5 mile climb up Pikes Peak and the run back down the mountain sometime around 1980 but that is another story.
I once worked with a little guy named Stephen (not Steve) who trained and ran the Leadville 100 mile Ultra trail run. Imagine if you will running along mountain dirt trails of southern Colorado at altitudes reaching 15,000 feet. They weigh you along the way and if you have lost too much weight in this run you are disqualified. He finished his race in around 12 hours and lost 10 pounds in the process. When I was in high school President Kennedy started a 50 mile race craze when he said that all Marines should be able to hike 50 miles in one day. I was 16 at the time and my track couch thought it would be fun to have the entire track team do a 50 mile race from Boonville California to Fort Bragg California. We started with 100 high school boys and 6 of us finished the 50 miler that night. They drove us down to Boonville and said, "See ya up in Fort Bragg". We had no water no food and no support along the way. I think if any high school track coach were to try this today he would be arrested for trying to kill off his track team. But I did it in a pair of broken down old US Keds and getting water from gas stations along the way. Many evel thoughts went through my head that day but now that I look back at it that day was probably one of the most challenging and interesting days of my life.
Today my wife Ruth who is 55 works out at Curves. Personally I think Curves is okay if a person pushes themselves but by and large people do not push themselves when it comes to working out at least I never would for very long. Exercising is 99% mental and if you take an almost Zen like attitude towards the pain that comes along with exercising you will not do any good.
In Marine Boot Camp there is a saying, " Pain is weakness leaving the body".
If and when you plan to get into a physical fitness program there are a few things to remember.
1. You do not need any machine to make you strong
2. The cost of your clothes will not make you stronger.
3. Do not do this program for anyone else but your self.
4. If you stick with your program your program will make you strong.