Queen of the hill

Workout: 2.52 miles on the treadmill and 1-mile walk with Denali

We were somewhere between Warsaw (Indiana - not Poland) and Chicago on Saturday when a workout in the most recent issue of Fitness magazine grabbed my attention. A walking workout. Of course, I had already been in the car with my in-laws for more than an hour so a workout walking a hamster would have caught my eye.

But anyway ...

I decided in my tired stupor this morning to give it a go and took the trusty magazine to the gym this morning so I could get my sweat on. Or at least turn my cheeks bright pink.

You start out with a 5-minute warm-up between 3.0 and 3.5 speed and a 1.0-2.0 incline. After 5 minutes, you alternate 2 minutes of "race walking" and a 1-minute recovery (at warm-up pace). The race walking settings take the speed between 3.6 and 4.2 and the incline gradually increases from 5.0 (I think) to 10.0. At some point, you get a 4-minute recovery before alternating 1 minute of race walking with 1 minute of recovery pace. There's more to it than that but I don't remember and the magazine is at my house, probably being shredded by Denali. I saw him eying the cover model ;)

He thinks he's such a ladies man.

I kept my recovery speed between 3.0 and 3.3 and my race walking speed between 3.6 and 3.8. I had a sweat but didn't feel exhausted, and the constant changes kept me from being bored, as did "Water for Elephants" on my iPod.

And since this post isn't really exciting and is lacking in details, I'll leave you with this - a sighting at the hotel gym on Sunday.

I was casually running on the treadmill when an older gent, and I say older because he had a head full of gray hair, hopped onto the treadmill next to me. He immediately bumped up the speed to 6.5 and continued to finagle with it from there. At first, I was paying attention because I was jealous and then it was because his increased speed was shaking my treadmill, making it difficult for me to keep pace. I was annoyed. I went to give him a "look" when I noticed the oddest thing. He was wearing a cotton tee, cotton shorts, white tube socks and loafers. LOAFERS, I say. They reminded me of the Eastland shoes I coveted in my Catholic elementary school days. My feet just hurt looking at him.

Have you ever seen such a thing? Got a story to top this one?