Fitness Education

The trouble with relying on gyms for your fitness quotient is that other people rely on them too.

Hence, you get 30 minutes a session--or whatever mite it is--so that everybody can share. You come away with an illusion of fitness.

Submitted as evidence: this weekend, August 1-2, was the first weekend this summer on which we kayaked on two successive days. Saturday was a mere shakedown cruise of an hour and a half or so out the hahbah and back, hastened by the reported coliform cooties in the water. OK, stiff yes, but not horrible.

Today we went up to the Ipswich River, to get the benefit of an unseasonably high water level and flow. Thanks to suburban fiefdoms with acres of lawns needing watering, this river, which is fed only by brooks and wetlands, has sometimes been dry or near dry by August 2. As you might guess, this is not so this year. It is not white water by any means, but it made a challenging slog upstream for just under two hours, followed by a lively spin downstream in just over half the time.

We hurt. This is not just a matter of effort, but a souvenir of assorted small traumas that come from downstream collisions with river debris ranging from clusters of twigs to whole trees. If you don't kayak on streams, do this to get the effect. Find a large staircase with columns at the bottom. Run down it as fast as you can whilst staying upright. At the bottom, stop yourself by holding one arm out so that it runs into the column.

Uh huh. It was fun, but it's troubling to be this far off our form when we're going for a one week kayak vacation in six weeks. Either kayak more, or be more obnoxious over the gym machinery.