I had never considered myself to be an athlete; those are 20-something year olds with 6-pack abs, (and for guys) huge biceps, pecs, and deltoids! Nor, did I consider myself to be a “runner!” My motto was “Why run when you can walk? Even better, if you can drive!” I’m a short (5′-8″) “senior runner” [runners my age are lovingly grouped together as “masters”]; in fact, it was just a couple of months before my 62th birthday that I started exercising (any kind of exercising) regularly.

IN THE BEGINNING…(circa October 2006)

A few weeks before starting to exercise regularly, I had lost five pounds (and was down to 205 lb–from 210 lb in September 2010); then, I got food poisoning from lunch at a restaurant and lost about five pounds more. After I recovered from that ordeal, I thought “Now will be a great time to start a diet” and, maybe, to start exercising. Janet convinced me to buy a used elliptical trainer and to start an exercise program centered around the “elliptical.”

ELLIPTICAL EXERCISE PROGRAM

The first time that I exercised with the elliptical, it was all I could do just to jog for 5 minutes at 30 rpm and at the default resistance level (R4 of 14)–I was sweating profusely and had a heart rate (HR) of more than 150 bpm (beats per minute). [It felt like my heart would pop right out of my chest!] But, daily for a little more than a week, I repeated the same exercise bout (session). The next week, I added five minutes to the duration of each exercise session (each training session of the week was the same duration); and, only a few weeks later, I started adding two minutes duration to each session each week; so, by Christmas of that year, I was running for 26 minutes, 1.5 miles (per the elliptical display), and my maximum HR, during those exercise sessions, had started dipping below 140 bpm!! [The elliptical trainer that I used actually overstates distance/speed; so, my true mileage was more like 0.90-0.95 miles, but that doesn’t alter the results obtained from the exercising!]

Beginning on New Year’s Day 2007 (only a few months after starting to exercise), I increased the daily exercise pace each week about 5 rpm (the daily session pace was the same for a week, then increased again the following week); and, after the daily exercise duration had reached 30 minutes, I began to increase the resistance level–beginning at level R4 (default level)–every two minutes for the first 12 minutes (R4, R5, R6, R7, R8, R9); at resistance level R10, I would hold the pace for 4 minutes, drop to level R9 for 4 minutes; then, I would decrease the resistance one level every two minutes, ending at R4–a 30 minute duration for the exercise session. Even a year after beginning my elliptical exercise program, I was still exercising for 30 minutes per session, 4-7 days per week and following the same exercise plan.

At the end of the year 2007, I weighed about 155 lb. (Recall that I weighed about 210 lb in September 2006), was consistently running about 3.5 miles on the elliptical (per the display), and my HR (maximum HR during exercising) was still about 150 bpm.

FAST FORWARD…(circa 2010)

In January 2010, Janet and I bought a treadmill. Even though I had continued to use the elliptical trainer 4-7 days per week, I found quickly that running on a treadmill, not only used a different set of muscles than used for running on an elliptical, but was considerably more difficult for me to get the duration and pace similar to the elliptical–it was harder; i.e., it required much more effort. So, for many months, I alternated exercise sessions between the treadmill and the elliptical. During the summer of that year, one of the young women with whom I worked asked if I would join her team of Women Engineers to run the Susan B Komen 5k Race for the Cure, 02 October 2010; I agreed, if my daughter Vanessa—a REAL athlete: soccer star and runner--could join in the run.

I had not run outside, on a road, a sidewalk, or a track, since about 1967; so, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Someone had suggested that I get a GPS-watch to monitor my pace (minutes/mile); so, I bought one, but had no experience with what a reasonable pace might be, besides I was running on the treadmill and the elliptical. [I wasn’t really training for the race, I was just exercising.] I was somewhat confident that I could finish the race because, in my exercise sessions, I was regularly running on the treadmill or the elliptical for, at least, 30 minutes; furthermore, the displays indicated that I was running about 3.5 miles per session.

On race day, 02 October 2010, I was full of energy (and nervous, since I had never, ever been in a real race before that time and did not know what to expect). The starting gun sounded and we were off. I was just jogging along, feeling fine, and enjoying the excitement of runners all around me–I was jogging because I just wanted to finish my first ever race! However, just at the Mile-2 timing clock/marker, I did think it was strange that I caught up to my daughter; so we ran together for nearly a mile before she sped up and disappeared in the crowd of runners ahead. I finished that 5k race in 27:20 (min:sec), a pace of about 8:49/mile–pretty quick, I think, for a 65 y.o. that was new to running.

But, totally unexpected was the exhilaration I felt after finishing that race; it was a rush that I had never previously experienced and it lasted, though diminishing, for a couple of weeks; I’ve learned, since then, that the exhilaration which I felt is called “Runner’s High”—I’ve been running ever since that race!