I work with some really great people. They are characterised by being intelligent, clear-thinking, driven and dedicated. They are also what you might call sporty. At lunchtimes my colleagues are as likely to be playing football, at the gym next door or cycling the length of Britain as actually, well, eating lunch. No longer am I labouring under the illusion that an Iron Man challenge is a competition to build a flying, bulletproof, weaponised exoskeleton by hand. If I threw a stone randomly from my desk it would almost certainly hit a triathlete, a marathon runner or a body builder. So I’m going to keep my stones to myself.
In this context, I have to keep telling myself that my little fitness programme isn’t minuscule and insignificant. It’s hard but I shouldn’t be comparing myself to everyone around me otherwise my targets seem petty and easy. But there really is no “grand scheme of things”; this is what I want to do and then I’ll think about what comes next. Half marathons. Marathons maybe. We’ll see. I still don’t enjoy running, or even “the buzz you get from completing a run” (I hear that quite often around the place.) But I do enjoy the feeling that I am someone who is getting fit, and losing weight, even 10 days in.
Speaking of which, my latest figures are:
Pounds lost: 6 (this is arguable as my scales are proving to be highly unreliable)
Beers drunk this week: 0
Other treats: 0 (unless you count two low fat yogurts and I don’t.)
Minutes run consecutively: 5 (this is a bit false but it’s the way the NHS program arranges things.)
FIFA World Cup sticker album % complete: 66 (from 90 packs)
I’m including that last one to track progress from here on in. The last third of the Panini sticker album is going to be tough. But damn it I’m not going to fail.
I’m especially proud of going a full year without an alcoholic drink. Well it feels like a year, it’s actually just a week. A friend and former work colleague kindly dropped off 20 bottles of his excellent home brew today. He’s asked for the empties back as soon as possible. I am treating this as another test from the maleficent higher beings who sent him over to make me crack.
So the rest of this week went: Friday night gym, Saturday run, Sunday short cycle (this was meant to be a rest day really). I’ll be on to week 5 of the NHS audio course tomorrow and I’m expecting this to be when it really starts to hurt. I did a ten minute run in the gym on Friday night to prepare myself but the treadmill is much easier than road running, so I’m avoiding it. Also I tried to show off and set the treadmill speed up really high (well 12kph). The speed made me drop my iPhone which clattered off the tread and was flung across the floor of the gym. This did not make me look cool.
Saturday night I watched Eurovision alone, and more importantly sober for the first time, so I know it really was won by a woman with a beard. The whole thing was like a Dalian nightmare ringmastered by gurning Danish car salesman convinced they could be successful comics if only someone would give them a break. Well I have news for them.
What was weirder is that it seemed all the countries were actually trying to win, even Greece who one presumes would struggle to pay for the lighting bill next year let alone whatever might be the equivalent of this year’s utterly surreal evening's entertainment.
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