Rambling Sunday Post about Exercise

Exercise is better to me when I'm actually accomplishing something as I work out.  A real bicycle on the roads is far better than an exercycle.  Running or walking around the city is far better than a treadmill.  Actually going up the steps to my office on the 18th floor would kick the stuffing out of the StairMaster, but for the fact that my company has not seen fit to put a shower in the 18th floor men's room.

That all said, I admire -- and wish I could bring myself to join -- the people I see out in rain and snow doing these workouts.  I have seen people running in the city when the sidewalks are mostly covered with ice.  I think they wear spikes to get some traction.  Seems like an unusual devotion to running, possibly shading into addiction.  I can't get that motivated to go bicycling, but I definitely miss it when I don't go on a given day.  It's starting to take more and more intensity and probability of rain to keep me in.

Since getting semi-serious about the biking, my weight has not budged.  But hauling it around the city feels easier, so that's something.

I have a pair of running shoes called Bounce that have very springy soles.  The soles also have little holes in them: presumably for ventilation?  I did not realize they had that feature until I went out in them one day shortly after rain had stopped.  Yuck. Maybe they were intended to be used only indoors, in a gym.

I read somewhere that any hobby for which you have to change shoes is getting serious.  I have noticed that my existing running/walking shoes are not really suitable to the bicycle.  The soles flare out a bit toward the bottom edge and get in the way of smoothly positioning my feet on the pedals, into the toe brackets.  I have no plans (yet) for those steel clip-in pedals, but I am now in the market for a pair of shoes where the soles don't flare out like that.

It's a slippery slope, isn't it?  Don't tell me, I don't really want to know.