Second Thought

“Somehow, things are never so good when they’re thought out a second time.” Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montogmery

A few days after I booked the trip, Exodus send me a Welcome email, as they are in the habit of doing.  Along with it arrived a Cycling Fitness Plan.  Clearly they were thinking of people like me.  I took a cursory look at, but that’s about as far as that went.  I’ve decided that I would start my training preparation in the New Year.  Surely 12 months is plenty of time to get ready for X amount of kilometres cycling. 

At this point I still had no idea what the total distance travelled is going to be, and the amount of cycling required. Perhaps I should educate myself with those little details. 

Thus, during the Christmas break I made the effort to read in detail all the trip notes and information I was forwarded.  And suddenly it didn’t look so much fun. OMG what was I thinking booking this trip?!  Whilst I enjoy cycling, I absolutely abhor the structure of it, when forced.  Way back when I was little, in one of he schools I went to, we had a teacher who would make us run 3 rounds around the school pitch.  I think everyone who ever went to that school will always remember him for “3 rounds around the pitch”.  It was his way of warming us up for the actual exercise or as punishment if we were naughty.  I’m not entirely sure, but I think the 3 rounds equalled roughly to 600 metres, so not even a kilometre – but when you’re a kid and hate structure, that was way too much.

And now, in mid-life I was going to force myself to do structured exercise.  Clearly my stupidity has no bounds.  I know there are benefits to it, and for years I’ve wanted to lose weight.  I did at one point weight 105kgs, a bit more than a new-born-baby-hippo, and it was thanks to cycling that I lost 15kgs and kept it off.  However for my height and age, I am now classed as morbidly obese and the fact is, I shouldn’t weight more than 70 at the max. I’ve struggled to lose the pounds – what can I say, I love cake too much.

I’m sure there are benefits to having to force myself to do exercise, more regularly. The trick will be not to over-do it with the food afterwards as compensation.  That’s exactly what happened when I joined a gym some years ago. My fitness level was increasing, my weight wasn’t budging because every session I had at the gym, was an excuse for a doughnut.  This time round I’m determined to be a tad more sensible.  

Anyhow, I finally perused the trip notes and on the 10 day trip, the cycling challenging turns out as follows: