But as all things have their wearing out time, my treadmill began to have problems. My husband, Jim, can fix most anything and more than once, he had the treadmill upside down to see if there was anything he could do about the machine. The treadmill had become dangerous and would suddenly take off at a different pace than the one set and I would have to scramble to keep from falling down.
(For an overweight women with bad ankles, this is not an appealing thing.)
Once, Jim even thought he had it fixed and the evil apparatus almost flung me off of it as sure as a bucking steer tries to fling off its cowboy. However, not being equipped with the sterner stuff cowboys are made of, I decided to never climb on the beast again.
Speaking of beasts, for the past two years, my husband and I have gone with a group of other bikers (via backroads that more than doubled the length of the trip) to Gatlinburg, TN and the following day rode the Tail of the Dragon. It's the curviest road I've ever been on and for this old R-TEC driver of almost six years, that's saying a lot. (This link is to a video on youtube that will tell you all about it. It was made for tv so they really piled on the drama but it is interesting.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K16YnmJN0fc
The ride is in the summertime and sometimes the only break you get from the heat when you're out on a long run is from the shade of a mountain. Both times, when we have ventured out on our second day in Tennessee to get to the famous biker road, the temperature has been in the 90's.
I don't take heat well at all and my tolerance seems to be getting worse all the time. I knew if I wanted to go on that ride this year, I needed to get healthier. So I used the bike trip as an incentive for me to get in better shape and lose some of my weight.
As I pondered my options to reach my goal, I knew exercise was a must. I used to walk a lot and had even started running a little but that was several years and pounds ago. I knew I couldn't start out walking on the uneven ground out here in the country where I live. (If anyone knew my ankle-turning history they would agree.) And I live too far out of town to even consider going in every day to a gym.
So, to bring both parts of this article together, that's when I decided I needed a new exercise machine. After some research, I decided an elliptical would spare my knees and keep my feet in one position where I wouldn't have to worry about spraining my ankles while I exercised.
So I got down to the business of learning about ellipticals. After reading literally hundreds of reviews about the different ellipticals available, their strengths and weaknesses and what the best deals were, I chose a mid-priced one (that I got a great discount on) and after the approval of my husband, ordered it.
When we went to pick it up, we took my poor treadmill and donated it to the Goodwill and explained what was wrong with it and that all the electronics on it still worked fine and that we hoped someone else could fix the rest of it. Maybe they would just have to replace the belt.
So, after an evening of following directions and putting my machine together, my husband announced it was done. That was on April 16th, a Tuesday. The next day I began my elliptical adventure and I have vowed to get on it and exercise every day, every morning until the bike trip.
My next blog will begin with the diary I have kept daily since that fateful day two weeks ago when I began my elliptical journey!