A Walk in the Rain

My dear, beloved personal trainer Rob (you can find him here at http://www.southcote.com/rehabilitation/ ) has challenged me to walk very quickly up an extremely deceptive hilly road very near my home, time myself and then improve my performance.  Sounds easy doesn't it?  I have actually walked up it once and vowed to myself never to do it again as it nearly killed me but ever the glutton for punishment....

 

This is my recollection of the events this morning: I would have liked to have gone out a little earlier than I finally managed but I woke up an hour later than normal which put me very behind (but boy, did I need the sleep - a full eight hours of bliss). So off I went making sure that I wrote down my start time in order to appease my trainer; 8:16 a.m.  Of course, this time of the morning is also the time that schoolchildren are walking to school.  However, I am getting a little ahead of myself here.  I had barely closed my front door when it started raining. My hair, when it gets damps does its own thing and goes wavy so I had the foresight to not straighten it as I would only have to do it again, but just stick it in a ponytail (usually by going out much earlier in the morning one doesn't see people and those that do see you are hopefully still half asleep so it doesn't matter what my hair looks like).

 

My hair doesn't look quite as bad as this....

 

Walking at a brisk pace (well it was a quick pace for me) I had to manoeuvre past giggling schoolgirls and mums dragging reluctant children behind them.  Having finally got in front of them I proceeded "up the hill".  It isn't the gentlest of climbs; almost from the word go you know that you up walking up a hill and I am sure that I felt that was the case as I began to breathe heavily.  Thankfully no one was behind me (most sane people drive along that road) and  I begun to get quite warm.  For those who know that I am almost the coldest person on the planet, you can imagine that I must have been feeling the strain. Walking up a steep incline is no bad thing of course but then I had the obstacle course to contend with as well.

 

In autumn the leaves change to beautiful colours, but they also fall off the trees.  This year (because all the seasons made conditions right) there is also a bumper crop of conkers, which also happen to fall off the trees.  I discovered that there are several horse chestnut trees along the road I was chugging up, and all on the side I was on.  I had to gingerly pick my way through the soggy and slippery leaves, the conkers and the cones (from the abundance of fir trees) that littered the already cluttered pavement and hoped that by my slowing down I improved my chances of staying upright. I then had to pick my way through a couple of branches that had either been blown down or, in my not very noble opinion, had been pulled down by human hands. 

If only the leaves were nice and dry like these.

I then thought I was past all the hurdles and just had to continue on focusing on the top of the hill.  No such luck!  A young lad on his bike and in school uniform came past me and then suddenly stopped a little way ahead.  I thought his bicycle chain had come off but upon getting closer I could see that his trouser leg was stuck in it instead.  It looked as though he was panicking a bit (no doubt about having to tell his mum how he managed to tear his trousers ) and so I gamely stopped to help him.  I held his bike steady whilst he carefully reversed his pedals to retrieve his trouser leg. He even said "Thank you" which was nice.  I have never really understood why people only wear one bicycle clip but I guess that you are less likely to catch you trouser leg on the opposite side of the chain (unless of course you wear flares....) and I so wanted to tell him to get some clips but I knew that would look terribly "uncool" to a lad of his age, so I blithely walked on.

 

 

The end was almost in sight as I marched up to the turning that I knew would take me back round in a great big circle to home.  I checked my time and found that I had done "the hill" (notwithstanding that I had to walk up my road to get to it in the first place) in fifteen minutes. Now this might not sound a very long time and even I concede that the hill is not all that long, but I felt pleased with myself that I had done it at all.

 

On the way back I had different challenges to put up with.  The hill going home is probably steeper than the one I had just climbed, but as I was going downhill it meant I had to watch my footing in order to simply stay upright, but the ability to control my breathing was a respite in itself.  I would have taken a bit of a longer route home had it not started to rain hard again, so I gamely continued thinking that half an hour is better than nothing at all. I still had to contend with schoolchildren, this time though they were of primary school age and once I got round them I was then confronted by two women walking just ahead of me.  That wasn't a problem but one of them lighting a cigarette was. There was I getting all fit and healthy and suddenly I was getting cigarette smoke wafting in my face.  I had to do a hasty and not very elegant jig around them in order not to choke on the fumes.  But at last I was home and I thankfully sat down and reflected on what I had achieved, writing down the times before I forgot them (all the way back I was saying to myself "fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes so that I didn't forget) and feeling a little pleased.  Then I got up and my legs suddenly decided to tell me what they thought of my "speed walk"  (you do realise that I use the term loosely).  Rob always asks when I complain "Are they working or hurting?", so I have to say that my muscles have definitely been worked - and have I  mentioned that I did an hours training the day before?

 

My next test is to go and repeat the exercise and try to improve on the time.  I might go out much earlier or leave it until all the children are safely in school but I want to prove to myself that I can get better and not huff and puff so much.  And I do want to please my trainer even though he has told me to give up eating chocolate.....

 

 

I am not even going to comment on this.