When I'm on my NordicTrak (or nerdictrak, as a friend calls it) I'm not on some big modern electronic machine. My NT dates from the early nineties, and it is made primarily of wood and is an entirely mechanical device. It has long wooden slats with toe grips on them and I slide them back and forth as if I were skiing. The skis turn a flywheel, and the resistance on the flywheel can be adjusted to make the skis slide more easily or harder. I work my arms pulling a rope that is wrapped around a pulley with variable resistance. There is an electronic speedometer that is plugged into the flywheel, but I need to tell it what level of resistance I've set manually.
I've had this device since the early nineties and it still serves me well. My use over the years has been sporadic, with a few totally neglected years in there. But I think it saved my life back when I was filled with bleakness in Chicago. I got up and got moving and ending up changing my life.
During the Big Loss, in the late nineties, I averaged more than five days a week on it. Thirty-five minutes seems to be my magic time. I've still got the same setup now I had then. Right next to the NT I have a portable CD player. (Sadly, too old to have an iPod input). The table it's on has just enough extra space to hold a couple of CDs, a glass of water, and my eye glasses which I take off my sweaty face. I have a daylight lamp on a stand shoved up against the front corner of the NT, to shine in my face and wake me up (and combat seasonal affective disorder).
I work hard on the NT. I can't watch tv or listen to audiobooks or read a book. I have to have music and it has to be loud. I have to move to the beat, it is impossible to be out of sync, so the tempo has to be right for how I am feeling. I play CDs so I can't change during a session, though the skip button is within reach. I vary between classical, rock and reggae, and often prefer no lyrics so my mind can wander. During the Big Loss, I significantly expanded my classical library and considered it to be exercise equipment. I would look forward to going down to the basement to listen to my new music, and incidentally get the exercise at the same time.
I got a heart rate monitor during the Big Loss and amused myself during the daily sessions observing how my body acts. Some says (like Sunday and today) it all feels uphill. For a large amount of subjective effort, I can't go very fast and the heart rate won't go up very fast. Other days, a given heart rate results in different speeds, for no apparent reason. I really need the speedometer or the heart rate monitor, to keep checking and keep pushing myself. Otherwise, I drift into an easy glide, not much different than strolling with the dog. Certainly I find I wake up during the day, so a given heartrate results in a faster speed later on. I collect statistics on myself, do arithmetic in my head about how far I'm going and how fast, and generally amuse myself in my own mind. It's the closest I get to meditation.
Always, the first five minutes are hard. Sometimes, the first ten are bad. Rarely, by fifteen minutes in I'm still struggling. This time, I'm adding all-out-effort intervals, going as fast as I absolutely can for 30 or 60 seconds, before dropping back to my more normal speed. I find it gets me revved up and into the exercise euphoria more quickly, and the overall time goes much faster.
Today, it started hard and stayed hard. The heart rate wasn't going up, and neither was the speed, but I felt I was slogging through soft sand on the beach. After 20 minutes, I'd had enough. I went upstairs and grabbed the weights, which I also totally love for my upper body. A rigorous and vigorous workout with them, also hard and far from peak performance, made me feel better about quitting the NT so soon.
At any rate, I love my good old NT. I don't know if they make these mechanical things anymore, but it really works for me.
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