Training

And Here We Go Again

I have no idea what my life should look like at this age, so I decided to go on a journey. Pack my suitcase and leave. The journey gives me purpose, the unfamiliar demand to be in the present. Past, and future must sit on the sidelines. In a few days, I am leaving for two months. The two months are a variety of several-week hikes in Germany, Switzerland, Scotland, and England. and then a long stay in London, a city that often feels like home. Why those countries you might ask?  Because I know them, and I don’t. I have visited them often but never had the time to slow down and walk across the land. 

I will share my journey with you. Perhaps sporadically, but this whole blog does not have a rigid shape. How could the exploration of life after 60ish have a rigid structure as we allow ourselves to dig deep and question?

During my time out from travel in the States the last few months, I tuned up. Like a race car being pulled off the track and having the tires changed. I catch up with routine doctor visits and go to the gym daily. Or at least try.

I created a plan this time, that does not always happen.

“Let’s add an eight-day hike on the Scottish-English border with my old schoolmates and their wives in August?” yells Peter from his study. 

“Sounds fun,” I yell back from my study. Sometimes we text each other. But today we are testing our hearing by yelling at each other from separate rooms. 

“Eight days Scottish English border. We will be hiking between 8 and 16 miles a day.” I froze. A one-day ten-mile hike is an adventure. Eight days between 8 and 16 miles will be self-inflicted torture. I left my desk and walked into Peter’s study area. 

“Do we plan to hike with the Maasai?” 

“Oh, you can do it.” 

“No. I have never hiked that type of mileage for eight consecutive days. Nor you.” 

“Oh, we will be fine and there are pubs on the way.” 

“That sounds productive pub breaks as we hike.”

To get into condition for this adventure I asked one of the trainers at our gym to work with me three times a week, I was not going to be left behind on the Scottish moorland. Then Peter asked a trainer to work with him. A competitive mood descended on our home. 

“I need to train for an eight-day hike of 8 to 16 miles a day. A bit too much don’t you think?  What a dumb question to ask my new trainer who is a petit, retired army sergeant, aged 60. 

“Not if you train. I only have 6 am slots left.” She replied. You have got to be joking I thought to myself.

“OK, I will take them,” I answered.

For three months on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6 am my trainer greeted me. On day one with the sentence:

“Let’s warm up.” And then placed me on a machine that sent my arms in one direction and my legs in another. She smiled sweetly as I began and then proceeded to increase the tension. Had she forgotten this was day one? 

“Faster, faster. Now squat, stay there. Faster.” My thighs hated me as they screamed in agony.

After ten minutes of warm-up time, I clung to the machine and descended with my legs wobbling. The trainer led me to another machine. The purpose of this machine was to strengthen the back. I hung over a pad and placed my feet against a rest. I was required to pull myself up and wave my hands out to the side. Briefly, for about three seconds, I felt and looked like superwoman. 

“Faster.” She barked and proceeded to count to 12. I was shocked to discover that she had an annoying way of counting. She only counted every other one. I stopped at what I thought was 12 only to hear. “That is only six continue.” I groaned and finally reached her version of the number 12, only to be rewarded with a ten-pound weight to hold and told to complete another twelve. There was no opportunity to pause, if I tried, she would look at me with her deep blue eyes, smile, and wait for me to proceed. At the end of the exercise, I had literally forgotten how to get off the machine and just remained hanging until a voice interrupted my dangling body. “Next.” Every exercise had an army drill aura with my sweet, tough trainer barking at me. The next exercise required me to place my arms on metal bars, hang from the air and lift my legs in front of me. She began to count every other lift, which again I felt was dreadfully unfair. I proceeded to lift my legs up and down only to discover that I was slowly sliding down, which I was not supposed to do.  By the time she got to her number 20 my shoulders were parallel with my chin and my feet were on the ground instead of dangling a couple of feet above it. This must be over I thought. I looked at my trainer, she was not indicating that I should follow her to the next machine, instead, she pulled her lips into a smile, and I knew what was coming next,

“Another set.” This time a battle broke out between my mind and body and my body refused to obey, my muscles were now on strike, and I just hung, thinking the gym staff would just peel me off the machine at closing time. The workout continued for an hour and that evening I took Advil to ease the pain. 

We were serious about our training and the days we were not working with our trainers we took an evening Pilates machine class. I had never seen Peter lie on his back and lift his legs over his head, I was horrified at the thought of him hurting his back. But a month later he was the darling in the class. The teacher was praising his improvement and the exactness and strength of his movement. I was still having to use my hands to push my bottom back in order for my legs to go over my head. I was always the one who did more exercise in the relationship and now he was more limber than I was, which was just not fair.  I called the trainer over and whispered to her:

“Please stop praising him. I live with him, and we are in the midst of a competitive streak.”

We shared the class with Robert, a retired nurse and a dancer in a previous life who was now well into his eighties. But he moved like a swan, covered in tattoos from head to toe. At stages, he was grumpy and at times outright rude, but we had grown accustomed to each other, and I could yell at him to stop showing off when we were moving through the movements too fast for my liking. 

This was also the beginning of my journey into whole food plant-based eating. We now eat a lot of beans, which can have embarrassing consequences in the Pilates class. I have purchased over ten whole-food plant-based recipe books. More as a symbol of my commitment than my desire to create a different recipe nightly. Peter sometimes struggles with the fact that most of our meals are served in a bowl; buddha bowls in abundance. He cheats occasionally and has a steak. I cheat occasionally and use several tablespoons of olive oil, how ridiculous to think that one tablespoon could be enough. 

In the evening we crave sugar and believe the other does not notice as we wander off in the direction of the bathroom and instead sneak to the larder in the kitchen and grab a biscuit, hoping the other can’t hear the rustle of the paper. 

I have been training with my army sergeant at 6 am for three months. I weigh more. Which is depressing. Muscle is heavier than fat is what I am told or perhaps I should not reward myself with biscuits in the evening. Over the few months, we missed training sessions travelling and socializing, therefore, we are healthy but never reached the superwoman/man status I had fantasized about. 

But I am ready for this journey. Ready to walk away. What we own, owns us and can be restraining.