In place

Today I initiated phase two of my new year's resolution to lose weight/get in shape again. I've been doing pretty good at watching what I'm eating, but that won't do the trick on it's own. Time to add some exercise into the mix.

Usually I walk or run outside, but the weather makes that simply unfeasible. It's too cold, too slick more often than not, and dark too early. Since I work at an institution of higher learning, there's a workout room with treadmills. I've never used it before and have only been on a treadmill a couple times. There's a room with much less equipment in my apartment complex's rental office, but I haven't set foot in that room since touring the facilities.

I decided that three or four times a week I need to make the trek to the school's recreation center and hop onto one of those treadmills. It will be a way of avoiding rush hour traffic on the way home and doing some necessary physical activity.

As I walked into the facility, I thought that my best laid plans had already been laid to waste. It looked like all of the treadmills were busy at 5:00 p.m. I was able to snag the last available one, though. I worked up to the fifteen-minute mile setting and maintained that pace for around forty minutes.

I could handle the pace, but having to keep it consistently over that period of time was enough of a challenge for jumping back into exercising. When I finished, I lingered on the machine for a bit because I knew that if I stepped off right away, I would completely lose my balance and fall down. (Anybody have suggestions for avoiding that?)

I'm going to deem this first session a success. I was looking forward to it as the day went on, and I felt like it helped me let go of the tension that had built up over the work day.

Also, I'll be really sore in the morning, won't I?