The Treadmill Obstinacy

See, here's the thing.

Since we moved house, we haven't been able to find the charger for my exercise bike. It's also been December and January, so technically, in Wales, some of the most meteorologically unsound months to be exercising outdoors.

But I own a treadmill now. My pal Harry, having decided he wants to get double-hard bastard-serious about physique and suchlike, has joined a gym. And in so doing, he decided to free up some of his living space by giving away his treadmill. I pounced on that offer, because - free Disappearing equipment, and now we have the space for it, where's the bad. But he and his wife Laura delivered it to us a few weeks ago now (d basically tied them to their chairs and fed them cake). Since when, it's sat there in my office, looking up at me with lugubrious imaginary spaniel eyes, radiating dejection because I've not yet got on it and put it through its paces.

In fact, just a couple of days ago, Harry asked if I'd used it yet.
'Been getting out and about to walk,' I explained, 'if for no other reason than I can get some outside air. Besides, it's been fine. Treadmill's for when it pisses down.'
'Ah,' he said. 'I see the logic there.'

Which would be fine, except then there's today.

Today it was grim here. Not exactly pouring down, but wet and mizzly. Could have walked directly after lunch, but chose not to. Was even contemplating not walking at all, and just cracking on with the work I had to do. But as evening fell, I decided to go walking after all.

Long before I got halfway, slogging it through the persistent Russian Hooker drizzle and the attendant sapping of the spirit to go on, I decided I couldn't do the full usual route. Took a right when I usually take a left, and subsequently ended up doing far less by way of walking than I should have - a mere 700-odd steps.

The thing that's confusing about that of course is that the treadmill's there, in my nice, comparatively warm, dry office, just waiting for me to get on it on days when the weather's objectionable.
Instead of which, I chose to go out, get soaked, lose the will to walk and ended up doing significantly fewer steps than I either would have or should have. And I still have to endure the treadmill's 'You don't love me' eyes. Sometimes, clearly, I'm too stupid and too obstinate for my own good. That needs to change.

Overall, I'm really rather irritated by the way the week has gone, if I'm honest. At some points this week, I've been four whole pounds lighter than I was when I did this morning's unofficial weigh-in, which is a sucky admission with just two sleeps before the next official weigh-in. At corresponding points to the weightloss though, it should be noted, I was doing over 20,000 steps per day, and not eating after the last of them. That hasn't been the case for the last three days, and the significant weighloss has rebounded with alarming alacrity as the effort has given way to available time and, today, drizzle.

Tomorrow offers me the chance to get back into something like a good routine. I have the morning off, so can wake naturally, and get my first 12,000 steps done. Then there's a meeting I have to phone in for in the afternoon (see my previous entry, where I got the day of that meeting wrong), and then there's a two-hour protest march in Cardiff in the evening, which I'm thinking of spending £8 of train fare to go to simply to add my voice and legs to the resistance to the unPresident's obscene policies of prejudice. Not exactly wise, nine long-ass days to payday, but if £8 and a couple of hours is the difference between resisting and not resisting, I can find it. Plus, from a purely Disappearing point of view, it allows me to get a couple of hours' more walking in.

So there's the chance of a positive upset before Tuesday, but not any particular likelihood of news as earth-shatteringly good as I had reason to hope for a few days ago. Which is utterly irksome, but there we go. Perhaps next time I get the chance to stay indoors and do some damned treadmill work, I'll be altogether less snooty about the whole thing. Steps are steps are steps, after all...