Beginnings of a Plan

“…at last he had the desperate beginnings of a plan“ The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

I’ve decided to only roughly follow the fitness guide from Exodus.  At least for now.  Ultimately what it comes down to, it is all about building up the endurance for time and distance in the saddle.   Once I can get at least some sort of routine into my weeks, I will consider building in some of the Strength building exercises.

My first thoughts are is to start walking more.  The fitness guide refers to building up the cardio after all.   My lifestyle is very sedentary, I basically sit behind a desk 5 days a week, and 2 days on a sofa.  I need to increase my daily step-count.  Sometime ago I bought a Fitbit, and there was a time when I was hitting the 10k steps a day regularly, but not so much over the last 2 or 3 years.  Work just didn’t permit it.  Since April of 2019, I’ve had more opportunity for walking after work, although the first few months have been tough.  Once you fall out of a habit of doing something, getting back to it can be quite challenging.  The other week I listened to a short podcast on the BBC about why it is so hard to break and form habits, and why some habits can take anything up to 254 days to form.  Since listening to the pod-cast it’s something I try to remind myself of it, whenever I start to make excuses for not walking.

Back to the walking.  Yes – since April I’ve had more opportunities to take in the steps.  My Fitbit goal for each day is 14.1k steps.  I increased it to 14k when I was doing more walking and never took it back down again.  The 14k equals roughly to an 8km walk. It took several weeks of actual active thinking before I started to hit the mark.  The increase in walking had nothing to do with the Cambodia trip, it came about as a general need to get out and about each day, after 8 hours in artificially lit conditions.  I grew up on a farm, and despite not liking exercise I’ve always been an outdoors person – I like to be near light, in the garden, in the park or a forest.  I need air! After so many hours in the office I sometimes feel constrained, tied, as if though a thick piece of rope had been wrapped around my body. 

Each day leaving the office, I had to remind myself, to turn right – not left for the tube, or cross the road for the bus, no.  Right towards Holborn and keep on walking.  Funnily enough my little clear-out spell had a lot to do with helping me out on this.  I discovered a new-post office branch at a Robert Dyas store on The Strand and as it seemed pointless to take the bus for such a short distance, I began to walk.  Whenever I had more than one letter to post, I would take them individually, so as to force myself to walk again next day.  Before I realised it, turning right from the office became a habit.  It’s now almost automatic. The only exception being, is when it’s pouring raining.  Then it’s the bus.  But by now, even a small drizzle isn’t stopping me from the walk.  I carry on past the post-office, towards Trafalgar square and either down The Mall past Buckingham palace, or through Piccadilly Circus towards Hyde Park corner.  By the time I reach Hyde Park, I’m very nearly at my daily step-goal, so taking the bus the rest of the way feels fine.  On one or two occasions I have even continued to walk all the way home.

But what about the cycling.