Inspired perspiration

This week has been a brilliant week. I joined a gym, completing 4 sessions, I have started my MBTI coursework and run the best part of 12 miles with Sharon on Friday. I have also finished reading Mary Webb's 'Precious Bane'.

The second week of my sabbatical is over, yesterday was my rest day from exercise, my 'sabbath/shabbat. Rest days are actually just as important as exercise days, they allow the exercised muscle to reknit so are essential in any training regime. I decided to take my rest day yesterday because I really wanted to watch the London marathon today and decided to train for as long as the men's race ran. The TVs at the gym allowed me to watch and plug into the sound system available whilst on the machines and listen to the radio on my phone whilst on the weights

I have to say that I absolutely loved it! 30 minutes warm-up on the bike and cross-trainer, followed by 30ish minutes on weights and core exercises a 7 mile, hour long, run on the treadmill using  Fartlek  I really wasn't sure how I would find a treadmill but have been advised to do at least one of my runs a week 'off-road' and it seems not only is it easier it is also better for the joints, I ended up doing some more quad work (these are the thigh muscles that I need to work on to help my knee problem) and finally warming down.

The two hours flew by and I could have stayed longer. When I think of how unfit I had become I am amazed - I am not sure that if 5 years ago you had told me that I would be doing what I am doing now, that I would have believed you. I am not saying that what I am doing now is impossible, for axiomatically it isn't, yet then it would have seemed so far out of reach that I would have considered it so unlikely I wouldn't have even tried, making it - effectively not attainable and therefore not possible.

Recently my youngest daughter, Kira, who is 15 has amazed me. A couple of weeks ago she decided that she wanted to get a little more in trim. She decided to go for a run and went twice around the park, around a mile. I, being the mean and heartless father that I am, told her that was next to useless and that she really needed to do a 30 stint,  she could walk some of it until she got better but 30 minutes should be the goal. She also decided to go swimming once a week and I (who knows nothing about swimming) told her that it would be useless to splash around in the pool for and hour and that if she was serious then she should do forty lengths (see I told you I was mean and heartless).

Kira is now running three times a week and has run 27 miles in the last three weeks, she has been swimming twice, forty lengths the first time and forty two the second. She just decided to give it a go and I am REALLY proud not just of the achievement but her application and discipline. REALLY proud. I am sure that I have inspired her, as Sharon also has, the unanticipated payback is that she has also inspired me.

About 20 years ago I watched the close of the London marathon and witnessed something that moves me and inspires me to this day. One woman, utterly exhausted and hardly able to stand, literally staggered the last few hundred metres to the finishing line, surrounded by stewards as she crossed the line. The utter strength of will of that woman has made an indelible mark upon my memory, her persistence to the seemingly impossible task, yet she did it. The memory of that woman still inspires me today.

I return to Bristol tomorrow, for three days, for further MBTI training, specifically about 'Shadow-side', dealing with that part of us that is less well developed yet, almost by definition, is brimming with possibility.