The Impossible Virtue of Trudging

There's something about a good solid trudge in the rain.

Mainly of course, it's the rain. And mainly, the thing that is 'about' it is a feeling that the world is a terrible, dull, grey, bitter place in which it is easier and altogether more manly to simply give up and scurry back home for a nice cup of tea and a bit of pampering, thankyouverymuch.

I turned round. It was about the third time I'd turned round on today's trudge. Behind me lay a quick exit from the rain, undoubted tea and sympathy at Ma's house and a feeling that I'd Done The Sensible Thing. Ahead, the road was all uphill, even the downhill bits, and the rain would find its way through the open weave of my thoroughly Summery hat, and, despite d's best efforts to hermetically seal me into my jacket, the water would undoubtedly find a way in somewhere, cos that's what water does, being both a fundamental and an elemental bastard, and I'd shiver and freeze and my bones, such as they are, would turn green and mouldy and, beyond a shadow of doubt....I'd die.

I turned back to the uphill road, and trudged on through a puddle.

Of course...there's something about a good solid trudge through the sunshine too - it's more technically pleasant, but it somehow leaves you feeling like a big girl's blouse for all the heroic, manly bullshit you spun to yourself about the nobility of trudging through the rain half an hour earlier.

Trudging, as I trudged today, through Bloody Changeable Weather somehow therefore contrives to deliver you the worst of all possible worlds...and then makes you realise there were worse worlds still, waiting for you just a couple of street corners away.

Much of my recent stolidity around the 15 stone border has come down to the fact that I seem to have developed an overactive Boredom Threshold - so 45 minutes of biking, or an hour in the gym now feels monstously dull, wheere previously, I could do that long pretty much standing on my head (well, alright, maybe not the biking, cos that'd just be silly, but you get the drift...). Today, I wanted to turn back and give it up as a bad joke three times, but trudged wearily on, mainly because I'm trying to finish an audiobook before I get to the office tomorrow, and trudging was helpful in that regard.

And it's amazing how self-congratulatory and virtuous it's possible to feel about having done, when all is said and done and trudged, Not That Much After All. While up until this morning, I felt convinced that Tuesday's result would be in all likelihood catastrophic, or at least not remotely exciting, after finishing my trudge today, I felt all sorts of healthy and positive and anything-is-possible...ish.

Endorphins, you see. Tricky little bastards, endorphins...Can't trust the buggers an inch.

Having said which, I'm going downstairs now to have some yoghurt and fruit because, while the endorphins are settling down, my body is telling my brain that it's Earned A Bloody Treat Today, Mush, and Don't You Forget It.

T'riffic. I have the brain of a middle-aged cynic, and the body, apparently, of a six-year-old on the constant verge of sulks and tantrums...

There, there...have a banana...