My boyfriend and I are preparing to go on this hiking trip in Wyoming in the mountains. We will be camping as well as staying at various smaller hotels and inns. This kind of hiking requires you to be in good shape so that you don't hurt yourself. I have been doing aerobic exercise most of my life, mostly by long walks, jogging, and bike riding. When I told my friends about my plans for the long hiking trip, they laughed. They do not think we are in good enough shape for this kind of rigorous hiking and that we won't even last for two days. Another one of my friends who I sometimes do aerobic exercise with feels that I can do this and should view it as a challenge.

We started looking into the best aerobic exercises to be doing to prepare for our hiking trip. I tried to call him on his lunch break at work, but he was never at his desk because he was out walking. We went to aerobic exercise classes at our local health club two evenings a week to get in better shape. When I went to his apartment, I found three aerobic DVDs about various different aerobic exercise programs. I think he is obsessed! We discussed our hiking trip plans, being sure that we did not overdo it but we agreed that we needed to be in good shape so that we could enjoy our adventure. We were going to hike short distances every day to allow time to take in the beautiful scenery. I kept telling him to push himself further so that he would be in good physical shape and not spoil our trip by not being able to keep up with me.

When I got home, I started thinking that I didn't want to relax because I wanted to stay in shape. But then I needed to realize that this was just a hiking trip, not a triathlon. If nothing else, my boyfriend is improving his health tremendously by taking this aerobic exercise so seriously and doing it almost every day as part of his regular routine, much the same as I have been doing for a long time. One of the things that helped him tremendously was purchasing an MP3 player to listen to music as he walked or jogged or went through his routines. He also found that as a result of the exercising, his lung capacity was increasing too, which is especially important at the higher elevations in the mountains. The other side benefit that he realized is that he lost about two inches off his waistline from all the aerobic exercise he was doing, even though it required him to get new pants to wear to work!

Our trip was a raving success, a memory that we will both treasure for a long time. If we had not taken the time to do the aerobic exercise program, we would not have enjoyed the trip nearly as much because we would have been too exhausted from simple hiking to enjoy it. We are both keeping up with the program so we can continue to stay in great shape, and are already planning our next hiking trip with even more challenge -- like in the Swiss Alps!