Wednesday 17 January 2007

A "wuss"...who me?


I was reading Tracey's back to fitness posts over there at Crazetrace. She was saying that things had gotten in her way to prevent her from sinking her teeth whole-heartedly into her fitness regime.

I really want to get fit too.

I have written it before, and I will say it again.... I am NOT fit and am not too good at sticking to a fitness regime. I don't have much spare cash, so buying a gym membership that will inevitably be neglected after about two weeks of committed use, is not a good investment, for me anyway.

Well, it is the new year, and as always, there is that dreaded "resolution" word that gets bandied around throughout the first month.

I never tend to make resolutions - like rules, they are meant to be broken. Instead I have blinkered myself and have set about making some positive changes in my life, that would seem to resemble, very strongly I might add, the dreaded old new years resolution.....but for fear of jinxing myself, they aren't. OK?

I want to get our finances sorted. I want to start a savings plan - DONE. My husband and I committed our first allotment into the not-so-easily accessible savings account. This account has been opened for almost two years now, but until yesterday, had secured and harvested only spider webs, moths and salt damp.

The plan is, that this money be used for the purpose of holidays. We both love to travel, but since the kids have entered the scene, we have gone nowhere the frequent flyer program could not take us...and now that we have depleted that little avenue for escape, we had to take matters into our own hands, and save like every other person has to do - sigh!

The other thing was to get some regular exercise.

I am a bit of a homebody; bit of a social boob; very shy and tend to prefer anonymity. While I could while away the hours reading, writing, thinking and other such stuff, these activities don't do much for ones sense of groundedness.

A marathon running friend of mine was telling me about her running club. I hate running. I am terrible at it. All the runners reading this are likely shaking their heads - it is just one foot in front of the other, right? How hard can it be? Well I find that I can run about ten metres before I begin chanting "I think I am going to die". My lungs burn and my brain feels like a dehydrated walnut rattling around in my head with each thumping jolt of foot upon pavement - "TAXI".

I do like hiking though and walking. These are activities that calm me.

Anyway, my friend was telling me that her running group also had walking groups. One was Nordic Walking. I had never heard of it and figured it was a hiking group and that the Nordic part was merely their club name. I was clueless to the fact that this was a style or walking technique.

Nordic Walking was developed to aid the training needs of alpine skiers during the summer months.

The walking is done with poles to work the upper body.

Today was to be my first day of the group...but it snowed and I was telling Tracey that I was tempted to use my weak Australian constitution as an excuse for not going....but I didn't.

Thanks Tracey for holding me accountable. I went. It was GREAT and I certainly feel a whole lot better. I even got to talking to some of the others in the group, which heightens the experience, for me anyway.


I am thinking, this walking group might even give me confidence to try something a little harder down the track.....a LONNNNNG way down the track, perhaps even the walk to run group.

I can do this!

6 comments:

Tracey said...

Go you!! (This nordic walking thing sounds fantastic!) And wow.. I was kinda actually just being a stirrer, but if it worked, then ... well.. go me!

And, now you've gone and inspired me to wallow back out of the mini-funk I had myself in these past couple of days (I'm pretty good at finding excuses myself).. Back on the half hour walk today. I certainly don't have snow as an excuse!

Anyone else want to join our mutual admiration society?!!

Tracey said...

(Or is that mutual inspiration society?!!

strauss said...

I know you were just joking, but I do need someone to keep me accountable, so yeah, mutual inspiration...why not!
I am going to do the nordic walking group next Tuesday as well. I am telling you, so I know YOU know I had planned to go.
The walking group was very enjoyable really, it went for about an hour, and despite the cold weather, I was sweating by the end, but then again I had a zillion layers on.

Kathleen said...

Bravo! Half the battle of "exercise" is finding something that's fun. I'm needing some desperately myself, and since it's a new year (no resolutions, either, thank you....) I'll give it a go again and see what happens. I've got a treadmill and a pilates platform that I LOVE when I get into the routine of using it. It's just getting started that's so hard, for me. Holler at me now and again.

strauss said...

I love pilates, but the classes sodarn expensive. I could go to a physio and claim it on my health insurance, but those opportunities are always through the day when child care is the issue. The walking group was very reasonably priced.
Yes for me, half teh battle is finding something that is fun - outdoors things are best for me I think.

ClaireWalter said...

It's now nearly three-quarters of the way around the 2007 calendar since you discovered Nordic Walking. I'm wondering whether you found it solved your challenges in sticking to a fitness program.
Claire @ http://nordic-walking-usa.blogspot.com