Category: exercise

further update

Second night with no alcohol. I managed this by arranging to have dinner a little earlier than usual (made possible by the fact that the mister was home sick) and telling myself that I couldn’t drink because I *had* to get over to the treadmill after dinner because I haven’t been to the gym for so long and I can feel myself beginning my (re)descent onto the lounge which will lead to even more drinking and so on…

By the time I got back from the treadmill (there’s a small room in the middle of the compound which houses a treadmill and two bike-looking things no idea what they are) I was on a post-exercise high which made it easier to tell myself to go to my desk and fit in some bonus work. I was able to do said bonus work because I hadn’t had a drink so wasn’t drowsy.

All of this meant that when it was time for bed I felt that I had lived the last few hours in a most fulfilling manner and I went to bed satisfied.

Unfortunately, I was so satisfied with myself that my brain kept telling itself over and over just how satisfied it was with itself and I couldn’t get to sleep.

Final verdict? Unconvinced.

Vertical Marathon

So, I was at my Friday morning circuit class yesterday morning, the 8.30 one, the one I never, ever miss and I was at the star jumps station when the woman at the next station (something to do with shoulders) said, ‘So where were you last week?’

And you know, I had to think for a moment. Where was I? ‘I was somewhere,’ I said, asking my brain to co-operate, and then I remembered…

that first of all, we got into the car extremely early indeed.

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We drove out of Abu Dhabi.

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Until we got to Dubai, where I registered.

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And then I ran.

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All the way to the top of this.

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And that, my friends, is an event on which I cannot believe I am reporting. Me. Running.

The statistics: 52 floors, 1,334 steps, 16 minutes.

That day, the day I ran a Vertical Marathon, it was my mum’s birthday, and she would’ve been 63 which is the age my dad was when he died. Somehow or other it all seemed to fit together in a way that made me think less about sadness and more about the depth of things.

PS See up there in that photo of all of us – that baby carrier on the back of the man behind us? There was a child in that when that man did his run.

And here we are at the end of April

Friday morning, first day of our weekend, and on account of the extra beer we stayed for last night, I did not go to my absolutely unmissable, always go, never miss it, just love it, 8.30 circuit class. Which is sort of fine, and I’ll be going to the 5.30 pump class instead and I do like that class and that teacher and so on…but now it is 9.30 and by this time on Friday, I usually feel super-good about myself and life on account of it’s only 9.30 and I’ve already done a circuit class, admiring my guns and accepting my buns…and so now the trick is to do something that makes me feel good for the next hour, so that when we get to 10.30, I will not look at the clock despondently and think, ‘Oh, 10.30 already and my life is passing me by.’ And for obvious reasons, that something has to be a little bit simple and not too loud.

Day twenty two, and I’m running out of titles, can’t you tell

New circuit class last night. I dunno, I don’t think it’s that hard. When the dude calls time, move one station to the right, next time he calls time, go into the middle, next time one station to the right, into the middle, one station to the right. And so on.

I can confidently say that in a class of maybe thirty, I was the only one who went station to station without skipping any, without choosing randomly.

I suspect, right now, somewhere in Abu Dhabi, there’s a woman thinking to herself, ‘Sheesh, does she need to be so grumpy…what does it matter if people go to the wrong station. So what if I did two rounds of lateral lifts and none of tricep dips…she needs to get a life…’

Well, no. I’m from Adelaide, when things do not proceed in an orderly fashion, my world, she falls apart. I like to live my life, station by station, waiting for the dude to call time.