Awaiting the Elliptical

Here we are another week and I'm still here to blog!

The Schwinn 4.5 elliptical trainer was ordered on December thirtieth and was due to arrive on the ninth of January.  When January ninth came, the phone was silent. I really wanted to begin my New Year's Resolution. But without the elliptical, I couldn't motivate myself to keep the healthy habits I wanted to begin. (Did you catch that I hadn't even started yet!)
Finally on the eleventh it was delivered in a box and sat on my basement floor. My hubby wasn't ready to put it together. It took some encouragement and a little shove to get him to even open the box. But once he opened the box he started the assembly.
I finally stepped onto the trainer around ten thirty (not that it took him hours to build, just some extra coaxing to get 'er done) that evening. It was a moment of Ahh... until I began testing it out to make sure that it worked properly. I started full of energy to burn and setup my profile as I walked, tried to create a goal (but I don't know what I'm doing) and gave it a test run.
The hubby told me he wanted to make sure the resistance and incline were working properly and had me adjust it all the way to the hardest level and back down. My quads were screaming and I was panting. It felt great to be exercising and I looked down at the time, sure that I had gone at least ten minutes. The timer on the machine showed 1:32. Seriously? One minute and thirty-two seconds? Ack! I am completely out of shape! I pushed forward with no resistance and flat land for ten minutes. It was the longest ten minutes of my life! I couldn't even do the cool down on the machine. Instead, I chose to get off the elliptical and stretch on the floor. I told myself, hey, it's a start! I promised myself I would wake at 5:30 (with Bear) and begin a thirty minute routine every morning starting tomorrow.
Tomorrow came (which was today) and Bear didn't wake me up at five thirty. As a matter of fact, Bear didn't wake up until almost seven. I begged him for five more minutes on top of that. Finally, I rolled out of bed (at seven) and after taking Bear out, I put on my shoes and jumped on the machine. Again, my quads were screaming! After three and a half minutes (even though I told myself the first five minutes are the worse, just hang in there), I was done. My excuse: I needed to shower and get ready for church.
After church, I did get back on and told myself that I would do fifteen minutes. I made it another ten before I said, "Let's go eat!" Oh my gosh! It has been a long time since I had really worked out and all I can do is laugh! I had bragged to my hubby (and he knew that I was truthful due to my prior employment at the YMCA) that I would get on the elliptical for an hour at a time. But so did he (brag about an hour workout on the elliptical).
Tonight I said, "Let's do this thing." I climbed up and started my workout. This time, no matter how much it burned, I pushed forward (with my ipod) in hopes to make twenty minutes. As I neared twenty minutes, a song came on that I wanted to hear so I continued. Then I decided to go until thirty minutes. At thirty minutes, I looked at the clock and it was just a couple of minutes until nine. So I kept on until nine. At nine, I started my cool down and am pleased to say I completed a thirty-five minute workout. Yay, for me!
I asked the hubby if he was going to do his workout as I stretched. He said, Oh, tomorrow night. Needless to say, I talked him into working out. What's ten minutes anyway (shrug). He finally agreed and ended up completing a thirty-five minute workout.
It was definitely tough to get back into it, but well worth it.