Routine routes :)

After we shifted to an independent home from an apartment, one of my major routines has changed and drastically! Most apartments in US have a free gym in the campus. So the gyms in the previous 2 apartments I lived in after coming to US, have been thoroughly "explored" by me :-D. But all that changed when we shifted to our current home. Yup, the problem is that there is no gym for the campus of independent homes. There are private gyms in Lexington, but there are none that are near to where we live. As I have gotten used to working out atleast for an hour for 5 days of a week, I had to do something.

So one of the first things we did do, after shifting to this place was to buy a cycle for me :).



Well, I didn't have many colour choices :-p.

So what was previously 10 min warm-up + 30 min treadmill + 10 min weights + 10 min exercizes became 20 min cycling + 15 min brisk walk/jog + 5 min exercizes + 15 min brisk walk/jog + 5 min exercizes :). The "how" is what will be addressed by this post :)).

The routine takes place somewhere in the range of 9:30 AM to 11:30 AM and it starts like this. I put on my exercize wear, brush my hair into some sort of a ponytail, strap a watch onto my wrist (God knows why!!), fill up my water bottle (yup the one hung onto the the mid-section of my cycle), wear running shoes and start off. The only things that I carry (actually my cycle does the carrying :-p) are the water bottle and the garage remote (the one fixed almost in the centre of the cycle handle bars). The remote is a very convenient device as I can close the garage door with the press of a button while I'm off riding on the cycle.

My cycling routine consists of cycling on a loop around my house with 3 water-sip breaks. There is no separate cycling path available, so most of the ride is on a main road, except one stretch where I use a foot path, basically as there is shade in that particular stretch. There are cars and huge trucks travelling on the roads I use, but though I block their way sometimes, they rarely honk at me. Honking (or pressing the horn) is considered rude or a dire (as in "only if the driver in front of you is just not following any of the traffic rules") gesture in US and you hardly hear any horns at all on the roads, unlike India, where probably if you don't honk, then you are being rude ;-) :-D. There's plenty of greenery on the roads I take, so its not really exhausting and is kind of fun :).

Its also feels good to know that I haven't forgotten riding the cycle with both hands not on the handle-bars :-D. I enjoy doing that every day on a down hill road ;-). The only sad part of owning a cycle in US is that I have to fill up air in the tyres myself (another do-it-by-yourself as there are no dedicated "cycle-shops" like India :-p). I somehow manage to convince (more like pester :-D) Sri into doing the work for me most of the times ;-) :-D. Thankfully I haven't had problems with tyre-punctures till now. Otherwise I would have had to slog for that too (Or Sri would have :-D).

After 20 min, I land back in the house, park my cycle, have a sip of water and am off walking. This time I carry only the garage remote. I know, I know, maybe its not very sensible to not carry any money or other stuff. But its a very safe place and so its not really a problem. I have fixed distances of walking and jogging, so thats exactly what I follow :).

There are not too many people who interrupt my routine in any way. There are dogs who bark their "hello"s with envy from inside their houses :). Very rarely I get to see specimens like me, who either are running, walking or walking their dogs (or it might be the dogs walking their humans - thats how it looks anyways, what with the dogs walking in front :-D). At one point along the way, there is a children's park, where I do see some parents bringing their children either by car or by pushing their prams. One I saw a mother pushing a pram with 2 kids with one baby in her arm!! Atleast I think its their mother ;-). Or she may have been a rich baby-sitter :-D.

I hardly get to speak to any of the people I encounter except the usual "Hello", "Hi, How are you?" or a smile :). But once I did meet this lady who was out to check her mail (not the internet one but the real mail :-p). She did smile a hello and then suddenly said "Well, I should be out walking like you!" :-D. It was really nice the way us two total strangers shared a moment of complete understanding :).

After 15 min of walk-run combination, I reach the area club. The club sadly only has a swimming pool and no gym. And its too costly to join just for the pool. The place I like most is just next to this club and I call it "My grove" :-D. Its a lovely lawn surrounded by trees. There are some park benches. Though there are houses just beyond the trees, its a quiet green peaceful place, where I do some basic exercises and also have some moments of breather. The best part is that there are no disturbances and being the nature lover I am, the blue sky (white sky on cloudy days of course :-D), the green leaves and grass, I feel, is so pleasing to the sight. There are also squirels that look at me suspiciously as if they want to punish me for invading their territory (:-p), birds chirping to themselves and insects screeching. I have even seen a couple of hares twice and a pair of white bunny rabbits once (Nope, I didn't follow one like Alice in Wonderland :-p. And yup, they did vanish when I tried to reach out to them :( :-p). Does sound unbelievable, doesn't it? Well, the place certainly exists :).

The noises of the outer world do intrude sometimes like a car passing by or the voices of people playing in the pool water (the latter has stopped now as the pool has been closed in anticipation of winter), but nevertheless its all music to my ears. Over the past few months the grove has become a place where my thought process is in full swing, a place where I feel absolute peace and a place thats mine though I am there hardly for 5 minutes a day :). I long to take the camera there, but its not really possible while exercizing. Also, one of the hidden agendas is not to share it with anyone :-p ;-) :-D.

After a few moments of rest, I head back with the same walking/jogging and cover another 15 min. I open the garage door with the remote and drink water again. I do some 5 min of stomach exercizes and I am done :). I have stuck to the routine for some time now regularly for 4 days a week (5th day I have a whole house to vacuum + do the exercize set anyways).

I basically am getting plenty of sunshine and fresh air now than previously when I used to go to the gym. But I really wonder what'll happen once winter is here. It was very easy in apartment to wear a jacket and remove it once I went inside the gym (yup, the gyms are all air-conditioned :-D). Now there is no protection whatsoever from snow and the cold. I can hardly go through with the routine if its raining, so it'll certainly be impossible in the snow. I don't really want to stop exercizing altogether, so I guess I'll have to figure something out.

If it weren't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all - Joey Adams.

I don't exercise. If God wanted me to bend over, he'd have put diamonds on the floor - Joan Rivers.

Eat Right, Exercise, Die Anyway! - Edward McPhail.

Hehehe :)).