My girlfriend and I are preparing to go on a hiking trip to Glacier National Park. We are going to alternate between some camping and some staying at various small hotels and inns. I have been involved with doing some aerobic exercise my whole life, either by walking or biking. When I told my husband the plans to go on a hiking trip with my friend he laughed it away. He does not think either one of us will have enough stamina to last two days, let alone a full-length hiking trip. I told my friend about my husband's disbelieving reaction. She is in shape, but does not consistently do any aerobic exercise. She took this as a challenge.

She started looking into the best aerobic exercise to prepare for our trip. I tried calling her during our lunch breaks, but could never find her at her desk because she was out walking. Two evenings a week she went to aerobic exercise classes. I went over to her apartment and found three DVDs on various aerobic exercise programs. The woman is obsessed. We discussed that when we first planned the trip we were going to hike for short distances each day to take in the beautiful surroundings, now she was looking at this as an aerobic exercise challenge! She told me that I better start pushing myself more to build up my strength so that I would be able to keep up with her.

I went home and told my husband that I feared our relaxing; get in touch with nature trip is going to turn into a triathlon. He thinks this situation is quite humorous. At least my friend is improving her health with the aerobic exercise, but I was really not planning on having to run up a hiking path. I purchased an aerobic exercise tape for my walkman and started pushing myself more.

The first few walks I worked harder trying to vent out my energy of frustrations towards my friend and husband, but as my stamina improved and my lung capacity expanded I found I was actually enjoying this higher level of aerobic exercise. When I went shopping for clothes for the trip I found that I had been slimmer by a full pant size! My clothes at home looked looser also. I told my husband that this was my sweet revenge for his challenge, a whole new wardrobe. He does not raise any objections because he thinks I look greater than ever.

As the date of our trip approaches we are getting more and more excited about going on our adventure. Both of us look and feel better since we increased our aerobic exercise. If you hear about two women racing around the hiking trials in Glacier National Park, I am one of them.