Why I hate cardio.

May 20, 2009

I think I noticed at last on the track today why I hate cardio.

Normally I'd do cardio on an eliptical or bike machine. I watched TV or listened to music. I got very bored very quickly. I didn't like the repetitive motion and I felt like it wasn't getting me anywhere.

For the first time since surgery, I have started to instead, do cardio outside. Its hotter, but there's a breeze. I don't like the gravel on the track, to me its like walking on beach sand. Very hard on the ankles. But I noticed something. Something that now that I think about it, seems pretty obvious.

I was moving forward. Not just moving (like on a machine) but moving forward. There was constant forward motion that really made me feel like I was getting (and going) somewhere. I was so surprised, watching the trees and grass go by me, how natural and wonderful it felt to move. I even went into little spurts of jogging at some points. I could take long strides and really push and lengthen my muscles, or short quick jogging steps and get my heart rate up

Darnit, why didn't I see this before! I'm just a creature of the planet. I have these innate instincts that tell me cardio on a machine is unnatural, doesn't feel right. You're moving but not traveling. So I avoided it. Disliked it. Got bored very easily with it. But I still knew that I needed cardio, I needed to get up and move.

Sometimes I think our primitive selves have it right. (most of the time actually... but hey, society says we can't go be monkeys in a tree anymore) I like moving, but I also like feeling like I accomplished something. On an eliptical, I did all that movement and all I had were these mathmatical calculations that measured calorie burn by my inputted weight by time, difficulty and heart rate. But I didn't go anywhere. I was in the same spot I started. I didn't learn anything. I didn't feel anything. It was empty exercise.

Now outside, on the track... (which goes from parkinglot, into a woodsy area, swamp, grassy areas... etc) I can scare birds, get hit with spider webs, smell the grass, watch planes land, and actually get from point A to point B... and arrive in a different place than I started from. That sense of accomplishment is really something else, something I wanted but couldn't put my finger on before now. There is real live interaction with what I'm doing on the track. I learn where the trouble spots are for running into webs, where the gravel is thickest and how to avoid those patches...

I mean its not rocket science, I guess. I just think I've learned something about myself as a healthy, active persion. If I want to be active. Get the heck outside!

(I sound like my mom when I was a kid, don't I...)

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