May 20
I’ve just run for three whole miles without stopping… I am so proud of myself that I have to write it down. I think I may finally, at a very late stage, have got the running thing. OK, I did run the three miles on a treadmill, so real runners (like my Dad) will just scoff at me. But still, it’s a start.
No, I think the start was about two weeks ago, when I noticed I’d run 3k in 27 minutes on the treadmill and I began to wonder if I could push the distance up and the time down.
So now, three miles in 33 minutes… that’s the latest target to beat.
I’ve always hauled myself to the gym erratically, probably averaging about 12 visits a year or something, but just lately, something has changed. I’ve timetabled three gym trips a week into my diary and I actually go… in fact I look forward to going. This is new. All very new. And it has come on pretty quickly. In March, my trainers and I were still strangers. Now, I’m considering buying a pair of those weightlifter gloves…
I’ve always liked to pump metal, ever since I joined this weightlifter’s gym in London in my 20s. The guys who ran the gym were very kind and encouraging, notching down their weights all the way from 70kg to my puny little 20kg.
Am I the only person who lifts weighs to Madonna, not because I really like the music, but because it keeps my mind focused on the fact that if I work hard enough, I too could have shoulders, biceps and triceps like hers?
Whatever you think about her: that 49-year-old body is phenomenal and there’s no way it’s all down to yoga. She can probably bench press 40kgs, maybe more… her bodyguards must just be for show, she could probably punch anyone’s lights out.
May 18
We went fishing at the weekend – a family first. We drove north to this beautiful little loch in the Highlands and it was a day of two halves really (you can tell I have to listen to far more football commentary than is good for me).
In the morning, the wind was bitingly cold and we stood in the grey water forlornly casting, casting and casting again. By the way, casting – flicking the line into the water and pulling it back - is really hard work and I’d thought we’d just be standing about holding our rods in the water… but I still got so cold that when I embedded a fish hook in my finger, I didn’t even notice.
We broke early for lunch, huddled round an Aga and got some feeling back in our toes, before setting off out again.