It's important to understand that I'm shit at football. Last night, however, I didn't disgrace myself. I'm still shit at football, but I didn't look like a dying man with lungs full of concrete, which is a massive improvement over last time I played (when I looked like a dying man with lungs full of concrete). The exercise is different to the running I've been doing, with lots of acceleration/deceleration and short bursts of sprinting, but I survived it anyway. Then I ate an apple. Then I went home to a woefully unappealing hotpot I'd had in the slow cooker which required an extra hour's work to be rendered tasty.
Point is, I'm finally at that point where I'm noticeably fitter. You don't tend to notice so much when you're doing your regular training because you're doing it continuously so the improvements feel incremental, but when you get back to something you've not done in a while - WOW. The difference was well noticeable.
I had the same thing happened on Sunday when me, my girlfriend and her dad hiked up Pen-Y-Ghent in the Yorkshire Dales. Last time I did it was with my (much fitter than me) brother and I was stopping and starting and wheezing and leaving salt deposits on the ground with my sweat. This time I was actually, genuinely wanting to run at some points. As in, I'm actually considering taking up fell running once my fitness improves some more. (Really).
My point is: there's a proper pay-off to exercise that stretches beyond a better fit for your old space invaders t-shirt. Your body becomes fun to use, instead of a dead weight you're dragging around.
If you were feeling so inclined, you could probably sum up this post as EXERCISE IS GOOD FOR YOU. I know, right? Who knew...
No comments:
Post a Comment