The Need For Speed

I feel the need...the need for speed!

Ah, the 80s, when it was still cool to like Tom Cruise movies and the rape of the public sector was in its infancy...

Thing is, over the last few days, I've noticed something really rather fun - I'm getting faster.
I mean, obviously I've been getting faster since I started this experiment and the weight got less and my muscles, such as they are, woke up and started earning their keep - I mean, when I started I could barely walk a mile without pain, and speed was hardly a concern compared with goggle-eyed survival. Then, as the weight began to properly begin to drop off, I got fitter, more like my old self, and my old estimates of how long it would take to get from A-B began to have some validity again.

But this is beyond what I can ever recall. A couple of mornings ago, I was doing my five-mile walk, and tube stations appeared to be whizzing by at a rather more pleasing rate than usual. Last night, I did what is usually a half hour's walk from Kensington to Marble Arch in about 15 minutes. And my 500-calories of biking, which at level 12 I can usually get done in between 70-80 minutes...the last few times I've done it, I've achieved sub-hour times. I know the logic says that obviously, the lighter you get with the same muscles working better, the faster you go, but I have to tell you it's just a little unnerving, because it undermines decades of understanding of how long things will take. It's not exactly unnerving in a bad way, just...takes a little getting used to.

Mind you, I'll always have the joys of public transport to slow me right the Hell down again - I swear, London has strapped on its Tony-kicking boots, ever since we've come back from Amroth. The last few days have been needlessly Hellish on tubes and buses, meaning any increase in my walking speed has been utterly negated by the fuck-you-and-the-feet-you-walked-in-on, think-you're-something-special-well-have-a-monster-delay-fat-boy reality that is Transport for London.

Sigh.

Oh and of course the blisters. Didn't realise the blisters were making a comeback tour until I got into bed last night, but oh yes, blisters a-go-go here and there on both feet, favouring the right though, as it tends to be the 'best foot' I put forward. So now I'm gooped and plastered, and off the walking for several days again....bastard things. I'm still gonna bike though, cos I can manage to do that without particularly putting pressure on the blistery bits. Honest...

Oh yeah, and score one for the spirits of panic, shame and over-compensation - today's official weigh-in result is:
16 stone 5.25
Down two and a quarter pounds on last week after all. I guess the trick now is to still push that down next week, despite the blisters. It's at moments like this I start looking at the £180 per month Kensington gym fees, and recalling the £25 per month leisure centre fees back in Merthyr, and really pondering hard.

Hmmm...