Back To The Gym

That was the story from this morning.

John said that he was going to go and I struggled with my conscience before finally getting out my trackpants and running shoes. Struggle? Conscience?
What actually happened was I had an internal argument with that part of my mind I like to call "The Cellulite Queen".

The CQ is that part of me that likes to sit on the sofa watching old movies eating caramel popcorn, or if pushed to effort then sitting in front of the computer with a cup of coffee and the maximum exertion involved in mouse-clicking.
She is my evil twin, convinced that sweating is something other people should do, but not us. Provoked by suggestions from my conscience that perhaps it is time to start the process of getting back on the fitness bandwagon, I had to put up with excuses and delaying tactics from the CQ.

• Oh, I don't feel up to it.


• It's really early, maybe later today.


• I'm tired.


• I wanted to do...[insert any activity imaginable]

But I am pleased to report that the CQ did not win this battle, and off to the gym I went. But I won't lie, I was nervous about what six weeks off was going to do to my fitness level. And what the pain level was likely to be.

I reprised my first "speed inducing" workout from Cris's schedule. Not much speed to be had, I have to admit. My hatred of the exercycle continues; burning thighs, lowering the level and just sheer stubborness got me through the warm-up. I was gutted, but not surprised, that I had to lower and then raise the intensity level just to get through five minutes. Aargh. Not a good confidence boost then.

I got off the evil exercycle and felt like I'd been sticking needles into my thighs. Good grief. Six weeks. That's all I've been away for, and I'm a wreck.
Once my legs stopped burning I waddled over to the treadmill to start Phase II of the warm-up, walking on a 10% incline. I was more than a little dubious about this on the back of the exercycle incident but managed pretty well and unlike the evil cycle there was no nasty burning.

And finally I arrived at the running bit of the session. Thankfully this is on a zero incline and was only to last a whole twelve minutes. I was a chicken though. I did the first half a couple of speed levels down from the target. Just before the halfway mark I finally convinced my Internal Doubter that the worst thing that could happen if I tried to run at target speed was that I would have to slow down again. And with that I ran the remainder of the time at full speed.

Not only did I not keel over at the end, I even managed to do most of the obligatory stretching. And I surprised myself by still being able to reach my feet during the hamstring stretches.

However, I will try not to feel too smug about surviving the start back session until I have survived the next three days of what is euphemistically called "delayed onset muscle soreness". Normally this is visited upon us mere mortals as walking like we've been on a horse for a week, and not being able to tackle steps in any form - up or down.

I'll let you know how it goes.