Finally, the finances cooperated enough that I was able to go out and get my recumbent exercise bike today ($98 at Wal-Mart). We brought it home and set it up first thing (yay, I know how to read and follow directions.....lol). I figured sitting on the floor and moving around to set it up was warm-up enough for a short try-out, so after getting it all set to go, I gave her a whirl. Turned on the tv and got to watch Kill Bill 2 while I was exercising (well, 12 minutes of it, anyway, not a biggie since I've seen the movie at least 4 or 5 times). Now, in that 12 minutes, I managed to ride a couple of miles (it tracks how far you ride, up to 99.99 miles), I got my heart rate to go from 72 to 123, and didn't have any problems with my knee killing me until the last couple of minutes. So, I figure that's pretty good for an old, fat, sedentary person who hasn't done any major exercise in the last, oh, probably 20 years. I think I'm going to start out with 15 minutes twice a day for a week and see how I do with it, then gradually increase the length of time. Once I can do a half hour twice a day, I want to see if I can increase how fast I'm pedaling and get my heart rate up.
I was hoping this was going to work for my knee, and it looks like it will (my knee was hurting when I started riding, from the walking I did at Wal-Mart, where we got the bike, but even after 12 minutes of pedaling, the pain wasn't unbearable). I'm looking forward to getting into better shape so that when warm weather finally gets here, I can buy a wheeled recumbent bike to ride on the bike trail that runs past our house. I like the recumbent bike because it has a seat like a chair and doesn't kill my ass, which is why I quit riding a regular bike years ago (so now I have to see how much one of those costs and start saving money for it).
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