Total Distance Travelled: 1,041 kms
Days to holiday: supposedly 177
Days in Lockdown / New Weird World : 129
Weight: 88kgs (down from 92kgs)
I started this blog / diary, with a purpose of documenting my training preparation towards a Cycling Holiday to Cambodia in Jan 2021. Out of coincidence and because I truly do not like to exercise, I named the blog url “Hate To Exercise”; and from time to time I’ve used the tag-line for my posts “How not to prepare to a cycling holiday”.
Why am I saying all this. Well, because of the information contained in my training diary and a prep-log, I can honestly say this blog is truly turning out to be a record of How Not To Prepare For A Cycling Holiday. In the last few weeks – or more precisely between June and July combined, I’ve been out for an official cycle session only 6 times, totalling a measly 116kms across the two months; compared with 150kms in May and 258kms in April. To an extent I can excuse the last 3 weeks of June – I had a project going live at work, which has taken up a lot more of my time, claiming my evenings as well as my emotional and physical strength, so the last thing I felt like doing was going out for massive cycling sessions.
I say that with a slight hesitation, because on 15.07 after a particularly shitty day at work, I needed to get out and stop thinking about office matters so badly, that I shut my laptop at 5pm, regardless of the ‘important’ emails coming in. I picked up my helmet, called my friend, and spend the next 3 hours, and 31.38kms meandering through the streets of London. This wasn’t about speed, and I wasn’t aiming for a distance, I just needed to get out; get out of the house, out of work, and out of my head.
That cycling session aside, however, I seemed to have replaced cycling with the 30 Day Shred HIIT sessions. Me and my work team-mates are now heading towards 3rd full month of the HIIT training; and as the progress report at the top bar shows, I’ve lost a few pounds thanks to it, as well as couple of inches off my waist. It’s been a while since I felt this slim – if you can call 88kgs and 90cm waist slim, but each to their own.
As far as I’m concerned, however, I look hot at the moment. Certainly I feel far more confident about myself and my body than I have ever done, even compared to when I was much younger and slimmer. This will also be the result of the work on my mental health, which has over the last couple of years improved incredibly.
Back to exercise. Few months ago I never dreamed of doing exercise this regularly; few months ago the idea of wearing leggings on a street, with tops not quite long enough to completely cover my bum would have been unthinkable. Yet here I am, quite frankly not giving a damn what other people may think, strutting down the streets and into shops in skin tight leggings, short (not quite cropped) t-shirts, and feeling like a million dollars.
That all being said, my cycling endurance training – I might just as well say it, it’s out of the window. I’m not were I planned to be, when I started this at the beginning of the year. I’m certainly not where the fitness plan from Exodus recommends I should be either. So if that holiday does take place – this truly is a How Not to Prepare For a Cycling Holiday blog. Then again, what do you expect from someone who Hates to Exercise.
Oops.
Hate To Exercise 