Nothing ... then a sign

Nothing, no action, gymless for a good (or is it a bad?) 6 weeks. Christmas holidays were fabulous: I ate drank and was definitely merry, read 4 books in 7 days and never gave a thought to my big challenge. My legs reverted to jelly and I undid all the good work and focus that happened with 6 weeks of being grilled by the biokineticist. Today I kicked my own butt back into the gym!

14 January 2010: A new day, a new year, and EXACTLY 2 months to go before I have to do my thing on a bike for 109km! Nervous tension awoke me at 5am and I dragged my festive season-supplemented body out of bed, donned my slimming black track pants and headed for Virgin Active (wondering if my membership had been revoked due to poor attendance!). 20 minutes on the cross trainer, 5 minutes on that torture machine for your arms (my mind had started heading in the direction of possibly needing to look at hand-cycling the Argus?!) and then I headed upstairs for the adductor muscle machine - my favourite. I wondered why the other early morning fitness fanatics were giving me such strange looks, and then I saw myself in the mirror in front of the adductor machine. Oh, the horror ...

I am definitely not your movie star look-alike who cries copious on-screen tears and still has clear eyes and manages to look frail, fragile and whimsically beautiful. In the same vein, when I exercise I do not gain a ruddy, healthy tinge, I go beacon red and puff up and out with extreme exertion. And there was the proof of my labour staring back at me: my face looked like a nuclear reactor waiting to wreak havoc and chaos on the world. It was WAY beyond a glow ...

So, I smiled winningly at the concerned faces I saw staring back at me from the rowing machines and started adding to my radiance by doing 100 reps to remind my adductors who was in charge. As a last-moment act of defiance before I left the gym I ambled across to the cycling machine that has defeated me for the past months, with limited rotation in my right knee preventing me from getting both legs to do a full 360 on the pedals. Effectively, I have not yet been able to cycle (despite many sessions of noodling in the pool with simulated water cycling). Lo and behold, with the seat on 7, full extension of my left leg and gritted teeth, for the FIRST time I managed to get my right leg to do a 360!

I mince my way through five minutes of gingerly executed cycling movements, with mounting excitement! I WILL be able to ride a bicycle on 14 March! Now I need to do something about putting sufficient miles on my legs (not to mention toughening up my nether region - sore after 5 minutes of stress and strain in the saddle)! Oh the joy! Oh the possibilities! Oh the fear!