Red-faced
I've been in Washington D.C. for an Academy symposium for four days now, edging on what seems like eternity, and am actually surprised to be looking forward to the normal hubub that is a regular Monday morning back in the office. More on this later...Funny thing happened today though; I actually had the chance to sneak in a quick workout in the hotel's gorgeous yet high-tech fitness center. This was taken in lieu of an extra hour of sleep, after a late night meeting that lasted until 1AM. I was alone in my morning endeavor for about an hour, until one of our conference attendees also joined me, a Swedish, mid 70's orthopaedic surgeon with an uncanny, best described as goofy expression. We both got onto the treadmill at the exact same time; my intent was to walk for a few minutes to wind down from a strenuous workout. But as he started his treadmill, he started to run at a surprisingly spry speed for someone considered a senior citizen. Some strange motivator inside me drove me to crank up my speed as well, until we were both running at almost my top speed, approximately 8 miles an hour.
About 5 minutes in I was beginning to feel the deleterious effects of lactic acid and burn out in my legs, very quickly creeping up my entire body. Sweating profusely and starting to breathe heavily, I was still determined to not let a seventy-something, grey-haired man outrun me. So I kept chugging along, propelled much more out of psychological rather than physiological propensity. One mile later we were still at it, then two, then three, then four, then five. By the sixth mile (his 6th, my 12th), I finally called it quits for the sake of preserving limb function and scurried out of there,shame-faced, while he kept running on, oblivious.
In retrospect, I'm still not sure what was ultimately more important, upholding humility or normal muscle movement. But, as I'm at a conference with 151 orthopaedic doctors milling about, at least one of these two could have been salvaged.
posted by Sheila @ 1/27/2006 05:57:00 AM
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