Day 157 – Week 23 – 23 mins
I was a little later getting out to my little park this morning – it was about half past seven before I trundled down the stairs and out onto the street.
It appears that is the time that all sorts of action starts in my neck of the woods. Not only did I have the odd left-over drinker from the night before sitting on a park bench, I also had a whole team of park cleaneruppers and a couple of people reading their morning newspapers. You need to understand – this park is not big – and while a few people floating around in a normal sized park would hardly be noticeable, here, it feels like someone you don’t know is sitting in your living room.
Nevertheless, I gave them all a smile as I jogged past, and carried on. Of course, the great joy of not speaking the language is that if they did mutter anything uncomplimentary under their breath, then I wouldn’t have understood it anyway.
Suzi
Day 148 – Week 22 – 22 mins
Well – only managed a few minutes of cardio this morning, but did go for about a two hour walk this afternoon, so I’m hoping that counts for a decent degree of exercise for the day.
I am a little stressed in the mornings at the moment, as I try to get out of the house early enough to catch public transport in a strange city, and still get to work on time. It hasn’t been an entirely successful exercise so far, and the stress of that has made it difficult for me to concentrate on getting that full quota of minutes done.
Tomorrow, should be a little better, as I now have a much better idea of how to get myself to work. BUT there have been problems on the trains and it seems there may be more tomorrow. And it is amazing how lost you feel at a train station when there’s public announcements in a language you can’t understand. Luckily, I am spoilt by the number of other passengers who speak English and point me in the right direction….
This is a very round about way of trying to make excuses about why I have been a bit rubbish since I arrived here in Berlin…
Suzi
Day 139 – Week 20 – 20 mins
I struggled a bit this morning. Slept in late, then was lying in bed with about 20 pages left of the novel I was reading, just as the rest of the house started stirring.
At that point I could have got up and done my minutes and been ready for breakfast at about the same time as everyone else OR I could finish my book instead, and still make breakfast – but I wasn’t going to be able to do both.
In the end I knew that I couldn’t actually physically move from bed without finishing the book (there was a mystery to be finally revealed after hundreds of pages), so the book got read, and then I decided I would live with being late for breakfast to get those exercises out of the way.
But this is the thing, you are constantly having to make decisions about what is your priority (as you can tell, for me, finding out what happens at the end of the novel will ALWAYS be the priority!) but I could cope with being late for breakfast, even though it means having to explain to others that I had to get the exercise out of the way. And as I’ve said before – for some reason I am often embarrassed about doing that.
But I think I’m finally getting better at it…
Suzi
Day 135 – Week 20 – 20 mins
Tried not to get scared by the 20 minutes of strength and stretching this morning, instead I took a deep breath and decided to enjoy it. And as usual, it wasn’t so bad.
In fact – I have decided the one single thing that I find the most difficult physically about the exercise so far, is not the running, not the push ups (though they are quite tough) or the crunches – the one thing that I find really difficult is trying to touch my toes!
Isn’t that ridiculous?!? But it really hurts. I feel like my calves are being stretched out of my ankle sockets and my hands only make it halfway down my shins. Am I doing something wrong? Do I need to start looking up ‘techniques to help you touch you toes’ on the internet. How come I find it so difficult?
Suzi
Day 134 – Week 20 – 20 mins
I’m actually getting a little bit scared by the numbers now. Twenty minutes is beginning to feel like quite a lot. When it was three minutes, it might have seemed a bit silly, but it was easy. I could easily convince myself to get out of bed and do three minutes. But 20? Twenty is starting to feel like a big number, and it’s just going to get bigger.
I was hoping to be addicted by now, but I’m not. I was hoping I’d have that endorphin rush that people talk about when they love exercise, but I haven’t. All I have is grim determination and a promise to myself to see it out, no matter what.
I mean, it’s not like it is a difficult thing to do physically – I’m not lifting ginormous weights, I’m not running a marathon – yet every day, there’s something in my mind that makes me not want to do it, no matter how good it is for me. It really, truly is only that stubborn anti-exercise particle in our brains that stops us – and I’m fighting that bugger every single day!
Jogged today – and actually enjoyed it, once I’d got myself out there…now, I just have to convince myself of that 231 more times, and I’ve nailed it!
Suzi
