My Cancun Workout
I just got back from a good hard run in the Parque Kabah. The Parque Kabah is a large park, located within Cancun, which has a decently long loop trail that goes through the woods. For a while after Hurricane Wilma the park was closed, but it’s finally reopened and is as busy as ever with runners and walkers.
Tons of trees got knocked down during the hurricane so the park feels different now. There are trees leaning out over the path which weren’t leaning before. And the canopy is less dense now since many trees lost their leaves during Wilma. Many of the visual cues I use to keep track of where I am along the path are changed or gone. Today I was running along at top speed (trying to shake another runner) and realized that I had no idea how far I was from my usual stopping spot. The path might as well have been on another planet for all I recognized of it. Finally I saw something I recognized, a worn-down tree stump on the left side of the path. I was very glad to see it because it meant I was only around the corner from where I would let myself stop, and by then I desperately needed to do so. I managed to pull away from the runner who’d been on my heels for most of a lap and by the time I did stop he was out of sight behind me.
The spot where I stop, and where most runners stop, is a clearing half way around where they’ve put in some apparatus for working out. All of it is made from logs bolted together and sunk into cement to keep them in place. There are stations for doing sit ups and push ups and whatever other ups you can think of. It’s always interesting to see how other people use the stations. Sometimes I’ll see someone who has come up with some new use for one of them and then I’ll take that idea and add it my already-too-long workout. If I actually run through my entire set of exericses I will spend almost an hour there. I’ve got 3 variations of sit ups that I do (and I never do less than 100 total). I also do push ups, stretches, lunges, leg lifts and some tricep exercises. Today the workout area was crowded but I still managed to get in all of my sets and even do some extra upper body work (which I know will make me sore later).
To get back to my car from the workout area I need to run a half a lap around the loop. When I’m tired I end up walking it but today I forced myself to run the whole way. And as I was running I was thinking how great it is to workout outside of a building. Back in the states I always belonged to a gym and though I would run outside when I could I always did the rest of my workout inside. But here in Cancun the weather is so agreeable that I can be outside comfortably all year long. And there’s no Top 40 playing on bad speakers, there’s just the sound of the various birds talking to each other and the distant (though not too) sounds of the city. And besides the only gym in Cancun that I’d consider joining got whomped by Hurricane Wilma and is now closed!
