What happened to 2013? My last blog entry was in May re the Intrepids trip to Glasgow and the Kibble palace, after that nothing, did the year end unexpectadly. Nope, sad to say I found myself involved in too many events to keep up with. A redesign of my garden, the loss of a new Nikon D700, a change of car. In short, life happened. I hope all had a good festive season and if not too late I wish you all a happy, prosperous and above all healthy 2014.
So what New Year’s promises did I make? None. However, I have undertaken a new project. You may recall in 2012 I started a series of blogs with “Feel the Burn” detailing my misadventures in getting back on a bike. Sadly I did not do much cycling in 2013. Mainly due to the inclement weather, afraid I’m only a fair weather cyclist, I also had problems with mobility which did not help much. After a year of massages on my arms, neck and back and legs I have regained a lot of mobility – Yay for me. I ended 2013 with bout of pneumonia at the beginning of November and had to have a pea that I had ingested into my lung removed. During the 6 weeks recuperation period I ate too much and had very little exercise. So in order to combat this and get my weight down I joined the local health club/gym. It was a good deal for a small monthly fee I have access to Health Suite, Gym, swimming, Golf etc. I had joined in November but was advised not to start until I had been cleared by the lung specialist.
On Monday 6th January 2014 I started my self imposed program of return to fitness via the gym and swimming. Now Gym was no problem, I was shown the equipment and how to use it. A program of exercise was designed to keep me mobile and help lose weight. On three days a week I would carry out a 50 minute gym session of 3 x 10 min walking on treadmill and 2 x 10 minute on stationary bike. In addition, to keep the arms mobile I would do 2 x 10 sets of weights seated on a machine and using my arms to lift the weights. My first two sessions, Monday and Wednesday, went well. I was surprised regarding the bike exercises as I never stopped in the 10 minutes cycling. My wee pudgy legs kept going. I will admit I was glowing by the time I finished but not too out of breath. Not once did I hear the cocky little swine of yesteryear stating he could do it faster and better. The little tyke may have been a devil on a bike, but he was never that keen on gym/PT. One up to me. He was however, a fairly competent swimmer so I was not surprised when he popped up today and once again laughed at me from all those yesteryears.
Now the scary part of the tale. Swimming. Last time I swam was in the Indian Ocean in 1975 when I was stationed at RAF Gan, Addu Atoll, Maldives islands and I was a tender 24 year serviceman. Since then on-going ear problems have prevented my from swimming, and until last year flying. Having flown I decided that it was time to get back in the water but I would take the precaution of attending an Adult Swimming Class. Today I started a 10 week course on learning to swim. In 2012 I managed to do many things among which I have disproved the old saying “It’s like riding a bike you never forget”. Today I disproved – once you have swam you will always remember how to swim. I was scared out of my wits. Just approaching the learning pool made my heart pound and panic set in and I mean set in. In the back of my mind I heard that little swine laughing at me and dancing his insane dance of glee. If it was not for his cruel jibes I’d have turned round and headed back to the spa/Jacuzzi as casually as I could. I pressed on and made myself known to the instructor. After a little chat I entered the swimming pool – not to swim, just to walk about the pool and get used to being in the water. Talk about your heart in your mouth – the darn thing was popping out and taking wing away from me and my mad idea of learning to swim. It did not help matters when I slipped and could not get back up on my feet – thankfully the instructor got me steadied and back on my feet. I was all for chucking it there and then. After another little chat about why I panicked I was given some confidence boosting exercises, just basic things to get me relaxed in the water, such as putting head under, blowing out air and then lifting head to get air – i.e breath and not hold air and try to swim. Hold onto the side with fingertips, bend knees and then stand up raising myself out of the water, then do the same with legs extended bringing them down to contact the pool floor then stand up. After 45 minutes the lessons were finished. I may not have got much swimming done, in fact none, but I did get some confidence back enough for me to thumb my nose at the kid of yesteryear and say I’ll go back next week for part two of the confidence building.
