Tuesday 19 June 2012

Boxing Gloves

Unplanned bike ride in to work today, courtesy of accidental early morning awakening and a sense of unrest in general.  For which exercise is possibly the only way forwards.  The run yesterday although making me smiley and calm somehow didn't carry through to this morning, and confusingly finding myself not even aching, well, what was there for it really?  On your bike.

And I'm setting off thinking, OK, you've got 45 minutes, 45 minutes to get this out of your system, to think hard or to beat your body into submission.  And by glorious coincidence I managed to do both.  One of the joys of simple straightforward exercise is head space.  I don't get that so much on the mountain bike where my head is crowded by concerns relating to the consequences of falling off and how to avoid such unnecessary evils.  But running or road riding, yes, I think as I go along.  Sometimes I also hum.  Sometimes there are tunes inside my head, and sometimes oh yes, I sing out loud.  But today I largely breathed.

I seem to have a psyche where I forget to push on.  I mean, I start with good intentions, focus, determination and think OK on this ride I will push it on particular sections, until my lungs and legs both protest.  And so I start, but then I get distracted either by the thoughts in my head or something around and about and I simply forget and find myself once again in spinning mode.  But today I was saved by a skinny man with hairy legs and a red rucksack.  For as I stood at red lights they turned amber and as they did so, he scooted on by.  So I set off in chase.  As you do, and indeed it was a bloody marvelous workout, because catching him was simply not achievable but getting nearer to him was, and as he reached his pace, I struggled to maintain the same distance, but made myself struggle and kept struggling and everything hurt and the hurt was good.

And swizzling through my head is Aztec Camera:

"Ambition and love wearing boxing gloves
And singing hearts and flowers"

No comments:

Post a Comment