A Year Of Running Around Parks
Something weird happened on Sunday, August 10th. I hit a milestone, an anniversary of an activity which, had you told me a year ago was going to happen, I’d have glared at you (probably because I was having trouble breathing), and told you that there was no way in hell I’d inflict such a thing on myself for another month let alone a year.
Well, Year-Ago-Me would look like an idiot, but Current-Day-Me would take that in stride. See, Current-Day-Me has hindsight, and I don’t mean he’s a member of the X-Men with a pair of eyes in his…you know… No, rather Current-Day-Me knows the value in the personal torture that Year-Ago-Me has begun to endure, and he knows that whilst it feels like a regular 45-minute session of self-punishment, it works out for the best. Year-Ago-Me was being slowly killed by a boot camp program.
The author portraying the role of “Year-Ago-Me” (An idiot in reflection)
(I’ve just realised what you may have taken self-punishment to have meant. Seriously? How old are you? And for 45-minutes at a time?! YOU MACHINE)
Having been so melodramatic, I sit here a year later, happily letting you know that Year-Ago-Me did NOT die! No! He’s alive and well! Well, he WAS alive and well, but he no longer exists. At some point, Year-Ago-Me transformed into a new me. Maybe at 364-Days-Ago-Me, if we want to be REAL pedantic, but then I have to break down the past year into measures of time that make for an easy- Let’s not go there.
But there was perseverance! Not mine, truth be told. After that first session, I felt like I was being slowly murdered through burpees and planking. Let’s bear in mind that at that point I weighed a bit more than I do now, and I was nursing my right-shoulder which a year after a pretty crappy injury, was still not back to it’s normal self. In fact, based on what the doctors, physios, and radiologists had said, I fully expected it never to work well again. It did most things okay, but lifting weight? Getting things off high shelves? Pretty much anything involving shoulder strength, or raising the arm in front of me and above shoulder-height, was murder. So you can imagine how much I loved push ups. Also, I couldn’t run worth a damn. Two warm up laps of the park? I couldn’t run that. I had to walk, and that walking sucked. No, the aforementioned perseverance was mostly Miss N’s.
I was hating it. But, we had signed up for two weeks, so I was going to keep going, and get my free-money’s worth. Sort of, but mostly because Miss N is such a wonderful influence on me, and I wasn’t going to let her down. So I kept going, and I kept trying, and kept biting my tongue as I was on the verge of swearing. And then we put our money where our mouths were and we ate our money. No, we signed up for a long-term membership. And you know what? It seems to have been worth it.
So now, a year later, how do I feel?
This time last year, I couldn’t run 430m – I’d probably have died. I also weighed significantly more than I wanted to. Now, a year later I can run 3.2km in just over 16 minutes, and I’ve cut my weight by about 10%. And my shoulder? It clicks and grinds on occasion, but I rarely ever notice it anymore. I feel like going back to those doctors, that physio and the cross-eyed radiologist, and putting a 2kg bag of flour on a high shelf, and just saying “HEY CHECK THIS OUT??!!” I’m sure they’d be blown away. Or confused. Who cares?
The author portraying “Current-Day-Me”: A lean, mean, shelf-stacking machine.
So how does it feel? It feels pretty good, Jack. A big thank you to Jess and Tanner, the sadistic but motivated trainers at Activate Fitness & Lifestyle – they haven’t paid me for this, I just feel they’ve done a good job. And a BIGGER thank you to Miss N for making me stick with something fitness-related, and to see the good that can come of it.
I still can’t fly though.
Thoughts In The Key Of N 
Fantastic news and great job! Keep up the good work both of you!