Wet, Wet, Wet

"You really don't have to do this," said d.
"Urrrgle..." I said. Then her words sank through my skull. She hadn't read last night's blog, thankfully. If she had, she probably wouldn't have given me the 'encouragement' I was banging on about yesterday - the encouragement to take it easy, or to quit.

Without knowing that, she'd said the words, and in my semi-conscious state, they had absolutely the opposite effect to the one she probably intended. I'd been laying there, rationalising the feasibility of staying in bed, all warm and cosy, and had just about decided I liked that sort of logic when d gave me permission to do nothing, and inadvertantly got my ass out of bed.

"Ugh," I said at the view outside our front door. It was 6.30ish, so dark, and absolutely pouring with rain. I got my boots, my big coat, my scarf, my hat...
"Ugh," I said again, stepping out into it.

I've spoken before about the power of music when you're exercising. And I'm here to tell you that the Manic Street Preachers, good lads as they are, are utterly depressing when walking round your home town in the dark and the pissing-down rain at Christ o'clock in the morning. Switching eventually to the Mamas and the Papas, it was amazing how revitalised I felt. The coat was protecting me, the hat was protecting me, the boots were protecting me, and whereas with Life Becoming A Landslide and From Despair To Where, Merthyr looked bleak and dark and horrible, with a dose of California Dreaming and Dedicated To The One I Love, I would have been more than happy to carry on for a while longer. Then, while I was singing along, a car came up from behind, and aquaplaned through an enormous puddle.

I stood there, dripping, wet to the backs of my knees, and muddy water running down my face. That was it - I was done. I'd actually done what I'd set out to do anyway - an hour or so of walking, and getting home an hour before work was due to start, so I could put in some extra time, because lunchtime was going to be spent at the gym on the first of our doctor-referred exercise classes. I crept in, took off some clothes and wrung them out, and got to work.

Lunchtime came, and we went across to the gym. This first session together was a 'gym taster', which basically meant some people who were too toned and bouncy by half would press some buttons on a range of machines for us, and then shout at us to get sweaty. It's important, in situations like this, not to take it personally, or there'd be rather more gym bloodbaths in the world. We treadmilled, we static-biked, I rowed up the freakin' Nile, and d did some frankly weirdass reverse-hand-pedalling thing that seemed like the very antithesis of fun. At random intervals, these toned fucks would appear as if from nowhere and shout encouraging things at us - and indeed at the other fat fucks in the room, of which, I'm glad to say, there were many..
"Gettin' sweatttty?" asked one brunette woman, as I rowed.
"What do you think?" I panted.
"Goooood!" she yelled, grinning and moving on to positively harangue a woman with individual breasts bigger than my head.

We staggered home, soaked with sweat and feeling exhausted but highly virtuous, and had a lunch that featured d's homemade bread strongly. Homemade bread - have I got a great life, or what?!

Five o'clock came and I bolted out the door - we'd decided, while we were there at lunchtime, to bite a bullet and get month-long 'swim passes', meaning we could go and swim any damn time we liked. So I decided to go and swim when fewer people were there.

Yyyyyeah, that didn't work. Just after five o'clock? Still like a motorway of wet bodies. Managed to do 14 lengths and then got out, more bored of stopping to swerve than actually exhausted. Came home, to d's home made bread and fresh corn bread. At which point I refer you to the point about the freakin' life I lead from just two paragraphs ago.
"Go shower," said d, "you're chloriney...and sweaty, come to that." So I went to shower, having come out of a pool full of pissing-about Welsh people.

Now - dinner, and an early night - tomorrow is technically Wednesday, but from my point of view, it's Monday, day of the UberCommute.

Ugh...as I seem to have said rather a lot today, given that it's been a great day.

Oh yeah - blood was 5.0 this morning (I dropped down another pill last night, so this is pretty good), and the weight today was:
15 stone 10, dead. Not great, but much better than I was expecting - yesterday morning, I weighed in at 15 stone 12.75, so clearly, Doing Stuff has shocked the system a little. So here's to shock and awe, and bringing it on for next week...
Woohoo...