Motivation

In my last blog entry, Dave asked what part of delivering junk mail I liked the most. I can honestly say it's the exercise, it's certainly not the money.

I quite enjoy exercising, or more to the point the continual improvement you see when you exercise. Many years ago a colleague called Tony and I started working out in a gym provided by our employer at the time. It wasn't a huge gym, not very flash, definitely not the type of gym you'd pay a fortune to use. It was however quite well equipped and had a good atmosphere, partly because of the other people that regularly used it.

Three times a week Tony and I would grab our gear at lunch time, walk the five minutes to the building that housed the gym and we'd work out for about forty minutes, then walk back up the hill to work. It became routine, which helped to keep up the motivation. I'm a real creature of habit, so routine like that helps me to stick to it.

For someone that's always been skinny, it was great to see the improvement I was making. I never got to the point where I was starting to look like a body-builder, but I was training with that sort of intensity. I eventually got to the point where I could bench press more than my own body weight.

Unfortunately, while bench pressing one day I strained my rotator cuff, the group of muscles in your shoulder that help stabilise the joint. I couldn't train for three months and when I did get back into the gym it was never with the same intensity as I had before. The routine had been broken and I ended up giving up on it.

Muscle doesn't just disappear when you stop working out and it's a myth that it turns to fat, but you do lose the tone and the strength, and I've now got a pot belly that I didn't have back then.

Now that we're delivering junk mail I've got that routine again. Twice a week we're out there walking for two hours, up and down hills. Already I'm seeing an improvement, the legs aren't hurting the next day and the hills get just that little bit easier.

We're always saying we should go for walks, or pump the tyres up on the bikes and go for a ride. Now we've got a good excuse and it's not just a leisurely stroll either.