This photo shows me at my home away from home, our gym Defined Fitness on Juan Tabo Boulevard north of Candelaria Road in Albuquerque. Inasmuch as I never have more than an hour to spend at the gym on any given day (and given that I generally only go there four times a week), I stick to doing that which gives me the most rigorous workout -- running on a treadmill. My usual regimen is three miles a pop, but occasionally, if Dorine and I are behind schedule, I'll do two miles at a faster pace. I like to run at 8:30/mile pace, at least, if I'm doing three miles, and at 8:00/mile pace if I'm doing two miles. (That statement is somewhat misleading, since I generally run downhill, setting the treadmill I'm on at a 2.0% decline. It's a long story, but Defined Fitness used to have treadmills that felt comfortable to me at 8:30/mile pace on a "level" setting, whereas the ones it has now feel like they're going uphill on "level." I'm not so self-deluded as to believe I could run three successive 8:30 miles on, say, an outdoor track -- I know the machines the gym has now probably are level at "0.0%" -- but my morale was going to take a beating if I had to slow down; therefore, I made a deal with myself, deciding to continue running at 8:30/mile pace and setting the machine's cant as required to enable myself to do that. I realize it's a wussy thing to do, but no one seeing me drenched with sweat after a run could say I didn't have a good workout.)
I don't call running a "hobby" or "recreation," since it hurts too much to fall in those categories for me; I've always had a below-average oxygen-transfer system, something I first discovered when I was a schoolboy half-miler and continually barfed my guts out after races. However, I'm sort of addicted to running, anyway, as it's one of a mere handful of pursuits in my life that weigh on the side of producing a sense of well-being and self-esteem. I've been going to Defined Fitness (or "Refined Fatness," as my brother-in-law once referred to it) for over eight years now, and I've literally run thousands of miles there in that time. The gym is currently oversold and under-outfitted with cardio equipment (an expansion is planned but has been postponed at least twice), but, given my sleep disorder and other health concerns, I don't know where I'd be without it.
