Cardi-No

So, true to my word, I got up at 5:30 this morning and made my way to the Summit Family Fitness Center. Earlier this week I expressed concerns that I would ever be able to really push myself at the gym. This morning I learned that I need not have worried.

I arrived at the Summit with a confidence that I did not possess that first morning. I strode up to the front desk, scanned my membership card, and made my way over to the elliptical. You may recall that this is the part where I have to negotiate a workout with HAL, the super-computer that runs the elliptical matrix. HAL and I may not have gotten along really well upon first meeting, but we're bosom buddies now. On a whim, I decided to that instead of doing either the Fat Burn or Gluteal (I think that means butt) routines, I'd give Heart Rate a try. I've got a heart, right? Seemed like a no-brainer to me.

Here's what HAL didn't tell me. The Heart Rate setting on the elliptical works by selecting an ideal heart rate, something like 70% of the point where your heart would explode in your chest (I'm guessing); then the machine works to keep you at that heart rate. Sounds simple. In fact it's torture.

Fun fact: the word "cardio" comes from the Greek root "card," meaning "heart" and the Latin root "io," meaning "GOOD GOD MAKE IT STOP!!!" Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.

Anyway, back to my ol' friend HAL and his evil ways. I started running on the machine. By putting my hands on the metal bars, HAL was able to keep track of my heart rate. Anytime it dropped below 136 beats per minute (which seems like about 76 too many beats to me), the machine increased the resistance so that I would have to work harder to continue. Of course, I didn't know this going into the workout, so I started going pretty easy. Enraged with my sloth, HAL dropped a virtual mountain in my path. Suddenly I felt like I was trekking through quicksand. Every step was hard. I went from dry to drenched in sweat in the blink of an eye.

Suddenly, my heart rate was going plenty fast, and when the machine cut my mountain in half, I had time to take stock. I was five minutes into a 40 minute workout, and I felt like I was going to die. This wasn't exercise, this was a heart attack drill. I kept waiting to feel a shooting pain in my arm and just drop into the churning gears of HALS hungry robot belly.

I turned to the lady on the machine nearest me.

"Am I supposed to feel like I'm going to die?" I asked her.

She shot me a cheery grin and kept running.

What made matters exponentially worse was that as I got used to the resistance level, my heart rate started to drop...not like on Greys Anatomy, just down from 140 to 136, 135...134!!! Knowing that the guillotine was about to drop, I struggled to get my heart rate back up. Running harder didn't seem to work, so I started just trying to convince my nervous system that we were under attack. I'd just shout out random words.

"Ahhh, bear! Look out for that lion. Dear lord, is that Michael Jackson?!?!"

While these cried did lead to a surprising amount of attention from the other people working out, they did not raise my heart rate even a notch. Maybe if I'd taken out my headphones... Sure enough, HAL dropped my onto the sheer face of Mount Everest.

I made it through, panting and weeping, and with about ten minutes left in the workout the resistance dropped down again to a manageable level. Knowing the pain of having the other shoe drop, I took off running. Holding on to those sensor handles, I pumped my legs on that elliptical, like I was running away from my heart. I was going to keep my heart rate up no matter what. I might have looked a little funny for a few minutes there, but at least I didn't have to do anymore mountain climbing.

I will say, though, that as much as it was torture. I'll probably do the heart rate setting again next time I make it to the Summit. I like feeling pushed. I like feeling like I'm making progress.

This weekend I picked up a new workout DVD for my morning living room sweat sessions. It's yoga for weight loss. It will either be great or great fodder for future blogs. We'll see.