shamrock shake : CollegeCandy

Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. This month we’re following Norah on her quest to bring exercise into her life.

OK, so Week 1 wasn’t entirely unsuccessful. But that’s not saying much.

By the time Wednesday night rolled around, I realized I had yet to do any physical activity whatsoever. I hadn’t even walked to class all week. Sure, I had a busy week – it was midterms time, the week before spring break. And any other week, I would have brushed it off as just another week without exercise, no big deal–there’s always next week. But I knew that I had this post hanging over my head, and how the heck was I going to write a blog post if I had nothing to write about?

So off I trekked to our campus rec center with my friend Martha, a triathlete and former competitive swimmer. This girl is way more intense than I could ever be, so I knew she wouldn’t let me slack off. And for going, I offered myself the reward of a Shamrock Shake afterward.

Once we got there, Martha chose her treadmill right away and started running. I wandered around for a few minutes, trying to find the least daunting piece of exercise equipment to start with. I remembered that a reader named Ellen had recommended I start with a cross-trainer (thanks, Ellen!), so I climbed onto the machine and got ready to start. Except there were all these buttons, and that created a problem. Martha came to my rescue, starting the machine and upping the resistance to level 6 (which may or may not be a big deal, but believe me, I was just fine with no resistance). Read More »