Pounding Pavements and Ripping the Roads

I’ve been exercising.

(wild hoots and riotous applause now please)

You may remember that in one of my bouts of motherhood amnesia, I vowed to do a sprint triathlon before the end of the year. Well, I am proud to say that motherhood won out over this rather absurd goal. The last event for the year is on in two weeks and I will not be anywhere near it. In fact, I wouldn’t be seen dead in a swimsuit yet, so that rules me out completely!

BUT

I have been exercising… the goal, a sprint triathlon at the end of February.

I’ve been pounding the pavement with my latest bandwagon (C 2 5k) and loving it despite my run of mishaps (don’t bother pardoning the pun). I’m mid-way through Week 5 and so far I have one misadventure on every single run. The latest have involved local wildlife (specifically rather persistent flies), domestic (though not domesticated) dogs enjoying the chase, wardrobe malfunctions (read: shorts creeping up my crack and causing nasty chafing between the thunder thighs), and an unfortunate case of stealing debris from a building site for my husband at the beginning of the run and having to carry it all the way. I’m a good woman, I am.

My only criticism of the podcast program is the atrocious song change in Week 4. I don’t know what you were playing at, Robert, but DJ just ain’t your thing. I thought there was something wrong with my machine, but no, the three tracks jostling for air space and creating a cacophonous noise for almost a minute just as I started my last run for the session was simply you trying to be cool. Newsflash: NOT COOL.

So, being past half way to a 5k Cliff Young shuffle with just enough bounce to get the ponytail swinging, I decided it was time to incorporate some riding into the mix.

Let me clarify here: Mr D loves me more when I exercise. Not because I’m sohotrightnow, nor is it the beetroot face and sweat moustache, but because I’m not such a snarky, downtrodden martyr when I exercise. So, having the unsettling capacity to see through me as he does, Mr D eliminated the last of my “Reasons Why I Can’t Possibly Go For A Ride Today” by buying me a new helmet for my birthday. Bugger.

“Riding”,for me, means getting on my bike and hanging on for dear life while feeling sure I am about to die of a heart attack any moment. I’m not what you might call a “confident” rider. No. Ok, so it terrifies me. There. I’ve said it.

But I got out there yesterday. Good for me. I rode 9k. Good for me. I figured that if swimming was all about getting into a breathing rhythm, and if the same seemed to be true for running, then I’d just do the same thing on the bike. Good for me.

I got the pedals going – breathe in one two, breathe out two three four, breathe in one two, breathe out two three four – I geared up and down to make sure I didn’t lose that rhythm and, LO! HARK! JOY TO THE WORLD! I had a great time doing it!

So, after a rest day today and a run tomorrow, I’m going all out: I’m going to do the 18k that I’ll have to do in the race. Bring it on. See how it goes. Who knows, I may be ripping up the road and pounding the pavement all in one session next week. Then we’ll really see who’s a tough little chicken!

And if, for some reason, motherhood wins out over this burgeoning triathlon career of mine, I will at least take solace in the fact that I now have three exercise options to keep the snarky martyr at bay. And that is a good thing. For everyone. Yes?

A POST POST SCRIPT (Do you like this? I think it’s really quite funny!)

After writing this post, I went to the bakery. At the bakery I bought a bun. With my bun, I exited the bakery. As I exited the bakery I stepped down an uneven step. As I stepped down the uneven step, I rolled my ankle. As I rolled my ankle I jarred my knees. As I jarred my knees (and rolled my ankle) I swore loudly…

So now I have my ankle in ice. I hobble. I creak and moan and curse that step. I will not be “going all out” any time soon. The universe has spoken. The career is on hold. The bun was average.

The end.

Riding the wagon

I’m not a bandwagon kind of girl. I just don’t like jumping on if the wagon is already crowded with people yipping and yaying about how great the ride is. That’s why I’ve only read one Harry Potter book (to placate my students, which didn’t really work because I told them what I thought of it) and it’s why I don’t do vampire romances, iPhones and doggy day spas (ok, maybe that last one is because I don’t have a dog yet, but even if I did and when I do, it won’t be going to no day spa!).

Yet, here I am, about to start week three of the Couch to 5k program, complete with podcasts. Why? Because of darned mummy bloggers yipping and yaying about the bestest way to burn the jubbly bits and get a bit of yee-ha into the psyche.

And bugger me if it really isn’t the best way to get rid of jubbly bits and instill a bit of yee-ha! It rocks my world (although this is not hard given the most thrilling me-time I have is a toilet break when both kids are asleep and I can purge without locking the Lion in with me lest he taste-test his sister’s forehead in my absence).

It’s the perfect exercise for someone with an out-of-control inner taskmaster like me. Yeah, you know the voice that says, “You’re not going fast enough! I don’t care if you think you’re having a heart attack, keep going you pussy! Stop? No way! Only soft, fat losers stop! If you’re not about to spew you’re wasting your time…” and all that jazz. It’s a voice that reigned supreme for a Very Long Time and it has not taken retirement terribly well. On occasions it can be heard shouting, “10pm?! You’re stopping the house work at 10pm?! Like Hell you are! Get that mop out, you pathetic excuse for a housekeeper…”.

So for me, the super calm voice that says, “It’s time for your first running interval… go,” and then, in no time, returns with, “OK, you can slow down to your brisk walking pace now,” is like a benevolent angel giving me permission to enjoy myself. Enjoyment, that is, provided I avoid the following:

1) Taking my regular (and I use this term in the loosest way possible) walking route only to realise that road works have rendered the sidewalk completely impassable. It forced me to tiptoe through the ankle-deep slurry and stones that passing cars hurtled at alarming speeds, yes, in the middle of the bloody road! And did I mention that it was a main road during the 5pm home-time rush? No?

2) Finding a new route to avoid being pole-axed by a semi, but realising that every single time the voice says to run on this new route, I am going sharply up-hill. I’m not fit enough for that shit yet! And did I mention the teeming rain in my eyes? I swear the natives thought I was in serious training for something a whole lot bigger than jubbly bits and yee-ha.

3) Searching for another new route only to find myself completely and hopelessly lost in suburbia. When the session ended I was still lost, finally resorted to jumping a fence, trespassing through a school, traversing a water-logged football oval and, upon reaching the main road (yes, there I was again!) it still took me 20 minutes to get home.

4) Accidentally pressing a button on my mp3 player mid-way through a session with no idea where I was up to and finding myself listening to Week 3’s track. I had to scroll back through the music, trying to guess roughly where I was up to all while walking briskly and slowly melting in the scorching sun. It took 5 minutes to find a sound that seemed vaguely familiar, but as it turned out, I was wrong and ended up repeating a whole lot of the session.

5) Grossly overestimating the capacity of my bra and how much The Blossom had had for breakfast. The juggernauts initiated a rather large let-down that positively shone through my purple t-shirt, dazzling the oncoming traffic (yes, I went back to main road highland dancing for fear of never making it out of suburbia – lucky drivers).

6) Rolling my ankle and swearing loudly (very loudly due to the false concept of volume you get when you have music blaring in your ears) in front of the husband and two young sons of a girl I am trying to groom for friendship. I have yet to hear what he reported when he got home, but I dare say my attempts to regain poise, dignity and charm were met with little approval:

“OH, HI CAPTAIN! (Yep, I couldn’t remember is name off-hand and ‘captain’ was the best my pathetic brain could muster. What happened to ‘mate’, ‘guys’ or just leaving it at ‘hi’?) JUST OUT FOR A RUN. (No shit, Sherlock) YOU BOYS GOING FOR A WALK THEN? (No, dip-shit, they’re sailing) WELL, BEST BE GOING… (God, let me die now)”  Ah well, at least I finished week two.

So, with one mishap per run and still loving it, I am looking forward to the next installment of the C 2 5k bandwagon ride. Before you know it, I’ll be romancing vampires, tweeting from my iPhone and pampering my pooch. Look out world!

It’s Blog Floggin’ time with Lori’s Random Ramblings of a Stay At Home Mum!