No Better Time Than Now

Here’s a secret. My deadline for this column is six weeks before the publication of the magazine. I am writing in early February in Green Bay. It’s cold here in Title Town. It was -12 F when I woke up this morning. The thought occurred to me. It’s cold. Then my brain froze, and I put off my run until the temps climbed above zero later in the day. Not ideal weather to start an exercise routine.

Another thought occurred to me. New Year’s Day is a bad time to resolve to start exercising. This year I resolved to hit the road running. It was 25 degrees New Year’s Day, and I ran five miles. The next day it was 5, and I ran five miles. The next day it snowed. I tried to run, made it about a mile, turned around and came back. The next week I got in a total of three miles. It was the last week of January before I got in my first 20-mile week. It is hard start an exercise routine in the winter up here.

Right now, though (April), is the perfect time to start an exercise routine. Even a bad day is 30. It isn’t too hot yet. So go out today and do something. What are you going to do with your first day? My suggestion is to take a walk. Do it again tomorrow. There you have an exercise routine.

It’s hard for truckers to have any kind of routine. We’re always chasing freight. Shippers and receivers don’t care about our exercise routine. The simplest thing to do is to run legal. Take your 10-hour break. Get to bed right after your shift. Get up in the morning and take a 30-minute walk, every day. Sounds easy. That’s a nice world, but not the one we live in. Many times where you take a 10-hour break it is a bad place to exercise.

Work around it. Get a walk in while you are waiting to get loaded or unloaded. It keeps your routine. It makes me feel a little less ripped off. They may have held me up for two hours, but at least I got something done.