Pushing It

Posted a personal best on the elliptical trainer this evening, but felt little in the way of a sense of achievement. Why so? Well, first of all it was only very marginally my best performance, not that much better than what I was doing roughly this time last year when I first started using the machine. And, secondly, I felt I was foolishly pushing too hard and not enjoying the experience at all. After the first fifteen minutes I knew I was going to be able to keep up the pace, but it was hard work doing so, and I did vaguely wonder if I might be putting myself into slightly dangerous territory through over-reaching.

I'm now thinking that it might be more fruitful to aim for longer bouts of exercise, stretching my current 35 minutes to 40 or 50, with no real attempt to push the pace whilst doing so. But, the problem is that at some level that feels a bit lazy. I'm finding it hard to strike the kind of happy medium of a sensible pace that came to me entirely naturally in my running days.

But I'm still grateful to be able to get going and keep going at all. At my age you count your blessings if you want to keep it real.