Physical fitness

I've never been the most athletic person, but there've been periods in my life when I've been reasonably so. I ran in my teens, including track and cross country in school and road races. In my early 20's, I was into competitive cycling. My natural state is at rest, however, and inertia tends to keep me there. My computer geek lifestyle doesn't help much at being active, and having three small children and a long commute doesn't leave me much free time for exercise.

I do try to fit exercise in where I can, though. I've discovered that if I take the 20-minute walk from the train station to a subway station which leaves with me a zero-connection ride to my building, I don't get there any later than if I'm lazy and take the three-connection subway trip that involves no significant walking. And while walking up 14 flights of stairs once I get there does take longer than the equivalent elevator ride, it certainly got easier after I'd done it a few times.

I've recently gotten on a strength kick, too. I started out with a few push-ups, and I spent $20 on a pull-up bar that I've been using. My goals were simple -- just get to the point of doing 50 push-ups and 10 pull-ups a day. This would let me do a minimal amount of weight-bearing exercise without having to commit a lot of time to it. This is basically how I've been doing stretching exercises for the last couple of years -- just a few minutes of hamstring and quad stretching before my shower. (And now I'm actually more limber than I've been since I was 14 -- I can actually put my palms on the floor straight-legged.)

But, being the ever-so-slightly compulsive type that I am, I haven't been content to leave it at the minimal push-ups and pull-ups. It's now morphed into half-an-hour to an hour of push-ups, pull-ups, air squats, three different types of flys and three different types of curls, broken up across two nights so that the different muscle groups get rest. I'm sure this won't last, but by the time my enthusiasm peters out, I should be able to do my push-ups and pull-ups as reasonable maintenance.