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A number of pulse-beats a year get subtracted
with electronic respect for the primacy of time,
both from the requirements of cardio-fitness
and from those of the much less demanding
fatburner zone. The treadmill needs to be told
only my age and weight, and whether I want
training on my own or on its inclination; hills
or intervals, weight-loss, heart-rate, random,
cross-country. An exhilarating sum is taken
in a vast mathematical calculation; endorphins
release, and I relish them, happy where I am
for an hour, religiously, four days a week, here
on the turning machine, working towards more
in the way of the identity of time and of space,
whether I walk or I run, lost in a great equation,
the sum of my place and my destination, one.
Chuck Tripi, author of the collection Carlo and Sophia, is founding partner of the Paulinskill Poetry Project.
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