Communing with nature...

Saturday, June 28, 2013

Savannah and I drove to the park for a workout amidst steamy humidity and biting insects.  Neither of us seemed overly interested in pushing ourselves; Savannah less than me.  I was thinking I’d ride the bike after we went to some garage sales we’d planned following the workout, but that remained to be seen.

Savannah is kind of an outdoors woman.  She has been camping with me in the Adirondacks since she was 14.  She’s been more than happy to grab rocks and logs, climb muddy hills and swing sets and do about anything I suggest in the woods for a workout.  She’s not wild about bugs crawling on her when she sits on the ground for core work, but who is?  So when she reached for her ‘rowing’ rock, lifted it, then dropped it, jumped in the air and screamed, I was a little surprised.

“Oh my God…there’s something crawling under that rock,” she said.

I lifted it and saw a tiny salamander, which fortunately hadn’t been crushed when she dropped the rock.  I picked it up and held it gently in my hand.

“Wow…this is a beauty!  I haven’t had one of these in my hands since I was a kid on Debra Lane,” I said, describing how we used to hunt for them under rocks and gather them in a pail as children.

She had no interest and was not inclined to hold it in her hand.  I returned it to the woods and we moved on.  When we reached our log, she asked me to pick it up and check for crawling things…she’d had enough of them for one day.

I didn’t find any, but when I used my biceps rock for curling found that I had a slimy residue that wouldn’t wash off easily on my forearm.  When I returned to the rock later in the workout, I found it covered in a slimy, yellow goo – the trail of a group of slugs that had made its underside their home.

I love this stuff.  I mean, anyone can work out in a gym and know exactly what they’ll find under a weight when they pick it up.  Communing with nature in this way and building strength, power, balance, and endurance at the same time rocks.  I know it’s not for everyone, but I’m sure happy I’ve discovered and can appreciate it for me.

Survival Workout:  60 minutes.

Training Heart Rate:  100-150 bpm.
Calories burned:  600.