It's been a bad week. Filled with sadness, madness and red wine. When you mind is occupied with stresses and disasters, it's hard to focus on doing exercises, or even finding the time to do them. It almost feels rude to do them when you know that time could be better spent, or at least it seems so inside you head.
First, the sadness. Last week we lost a good friend, Sam, and on Monday, Tracey took our old boy Max to the vet as he was acting odder than usual over the weekend, doing stuff that was strange even for him. The news wasn't good, and so we spent one last night with him at home before taking him to he vet for his last time on Tuesday. Some will say "hey, it's only a cat" whereas others will know the sadness I felt, and how draining it is. Max had been with us for almost 14 years, and he was an adult when we 'acquired' him from the neighbours, so he must have been 16-17 years old, which is a damn good innings for a furry friend. As I have often stated, I've had him longer than I've had my daughter. He's been a permanent fixture in the house, so I was devastated when his time to go had finally come. No exercises on Monday evening, or Tuesday morning, and as for Tuesday evening...
Well, we had some tickets to the Ellerslie Flower Show Garden party, and swanky fund raiser event for the opening of the show. At $125 per ticket, I was very happy to have some gifted to me. I met Tracey and we talked about Max, and entered the show, grabbed a wine, and began the naughty sorrow drowning session. I had several wines, about 6 glasses I think, and some nice hors d'oeuvres as we mooched in the sunshine being completely underwhelmed by the show and displays. Possibly tainted by Max's departure, but also because it was just plain old boring. But the wines were nice. We wandered, sipped, munched, then headed home for some bacon & eggs before bed.
Wednesday morning arrived, and fresh as a daisy I got Tracey to do something fun. Circuit she says, OK I reply, and go for a run. 1km later, I'm ready and we do a rapid session. Pull downs, push ups, raises, crunchies and more, in a loop, 45 seconds on, 15 seconds to recover and move to the next thing. 3 laps of that and I was a write off. Great fun, although 45 seconds is a bloody long time on some of the exercises!
Thursday morning and having enjoyed the circuit, I'm introduced to 'blood shunting' - or possibly 'bloody exhausting' would have been a better name for it. I went for a jog, and decided to see if I could go further than 1km, test my shins out. Sadly, at about 1.25km the pain started, and at 1.4km I stopped as the pain was getting quite bad. Still not ready for the 6.5km jog to work, but still hopeful before the end of the challenge. Back inside, and it's shunting time - swapping from killing the legs to killing the arms, no rest in-between, just go go go! I hardly remember all of the exercises as there was little gap between them. 10 different things done in 15 minutes, ending with a painful, gut searing prone hold. While it was short, it was fun. I would love to try it for a full 30 minutes, or even 45 minutes. However, I may not be able to walk after that.
I made the mistake of telling Tracey this morning that I haven't actually suffered after a session. I hope this is because I'm slightly active, riding to work and back each day, plus the occasional evening session too, so no real lactic acid build-up taking place. She thinks it's because I'm not working hard enough. Her theory is easier to test than mine is to prove, so I'm expecting some bloody hard session in the coming weeks.
Am I fitter? Probably, although I'm still depressed at how crap I am at what seem to be very basic and easy exercises. And I leaner? No. Still have the gut, but now that some normality has returned to life, I may be able to focus on food a little better too.
This Sunday's walk might be fun, in a crying in the gutter kind of way. Double-peak time trial. From the carpark in the valley, we head up to the top of the Huntsbury/Hilsborough hump, touch the table, then down and up Rogers Track to Rapaki Track, then back. Two very steep climbs with the clock ticking. I'm hoping for under an hour... Each climb is 100m ascent (or more) so not quite a walk in the park!
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