About Me

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I live on the ocean, write women's fiction, love to read so much that it's an addiction rather than a hobby (I read an average of a book a day). I live on the wet west coast so it's a good thing that I like to walk in the rain.

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Pain and beauty




I've increased my workouts to three times a week over the last few weeks - and I've gotta tell you that my Sunday evening workouts are at once the most painful of all workouts and also the most beautiful.

I get to work out in the yard of my trainer - in the exquisite early evenings of summer. It's on one of the quietest and most lovely streets in the city and outside the fence is a park. The sounds I hear are only those of the children playing and dogs barking in the park, and the birds singing in the trees. Oh, yeah, and I forgot the music.

My trainer has just recently moved back to Vancouver from France and so her choice of music tonight traveled over pretty much most of Europe. Some English rock, some French ballads, some Italian opera, some Celtic strings. I get to add the music to the beauty of the setting.

But I'm not sure whether even those two kinds of beauty make up for the pain. I'm working with what are called (I think) kettlebells. It's a weight - see the pink thing in the picture above? - with a big handle and a flat bottom. And what you do is swing it so you're not just weight training, you're doing your cardio as well.

Last Monday and Tuesday, after what is a relatively short half an hour workout - I thought I was going to die. Every single muscle in my body hurt and I'm in pretty good shape. I get to the gym for a serious 90 minute workout twice a week. I walk every single day. I swim - though not so much in the past month or so. But this workout is a killer. My hands hurt. My wrists hurt. My back and neck hurt. But most of all? My butt and my thighs hurt. Every swing - and that 30 minute workout adds up to approximately 600 swings - forces you to use every muscle in your legs and your butt to keep your balance and to snap that metal ball up and to lower it back down. Add to that 6 sets of pushups and 6 sets of squats (with the ball) and you've got a recipe for pain.

What makes it all worthwhile? No, not the physical gain but the beauty around me. I look up at the flowers, the birds, the trees, the lovely little dryad just waiting for the rain to fill her basin, the beautiful blue door - and I can make it.

At least I made it this week.

I'm not sure what I'll do the first Sunday evening it's raining and this is Vancouver, so it's sure to happen pretty soon. Maybe by then the pain will have diminished a bit? I can only hope.

Kate

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