I've always been keen on fitness. Right from when, as an 8 years old, I was dragged kicking and screaming to my first athletics meet. No one was more shocked than me to discover that I wasn't actually too bad at it. Over the years I bounced around a few different sports. Many were forced upon me by the constraints of an English single sex school system. It was ok, but I never really warmed to them, and turned back to athletics whenever the school elders were busy tucking into their third malt scotch for the morning. In recent years, while the spirit has been willing, the mind has been elsewhere. And my personal fitness dropped away from where it had been. Since coming to Sweden, I've resolved to change all that. In many ways it's a bit of an escape. There's not a lot of things here that I'm really in control of, but this is one thing I can do as well as I could back in NZ (I've resolved to stop referring to it as "home").
I have some specific performance goals that I want to achieve. But they are a few years away yet, so for now it's the boring grind. Some weeks are better than others. I try to keep my mileage up as much as possible, it's a training regime I grew up with, and endorse. 50km a week would be about right for me to maintain at the moment. It's not easily achieved when one is pretty much drained after 8 hours in a Swedish speaking workplace every day, and 2 hours of Swedish langauge class each week. Motivation and tiredness play a big role. But I'm forever hopeful that this will become less of an issue.
I've been very lucky with respect to sporting injuries over the years. Excluding a back injury from rugby and lower leg surgery when I was 18. Can't really count those. But I'm starting to concede that those inbetween years of laziness may have taken their toll on me. For the past 12+ months I've been battling a persistant lower leg tendon injury. Came out of nowhere and seems determined not to go away. I do like that specialist treatment from the likes of physiotherapists are regarded as normal medical expenses in Sweden. As opposed to NZ. That means that not only is the cost of a visit to a physio only about one third of what it would cost me in NZ, it also goes towards reaching the financial target for the year. After which time my medical costs are met by the state. That, I like, as this latest battle has meant quite a few visits and prescriptions already. I fear I'm not done yet. The highlight this week has been a swollen ankle that arrived unexpectedly and resulted in a late night visit to the doctor surgery to make sure I wasn't about to die of galloping blood poisoning. They haven't phoned back, so I'm assuming that the blue colour is a good thing.
So now I'm at the unusual stage where the spirit is willing, but the body is saying Sod Off. I'm not sure who is going to win this battle. I haven't given up just yet. But it's gotten close a few times.
I have some specific performance goals that I want to achieve. But they are a few years away yet, so for now it's the boring grind. Some weeks are better than others. I try to keep my mileage up as much as possible, it's a training regime I grew up with, and endorse. 50km a week would be about right for me to maintain at the moment. It's not easily achieved when one is pretty much drained after 8 hours in a Swedish speaking workplace every day, and 2 hours of Swedish langauge class each week. Motivation and tiredness play a big role. But I'm forever hopeful that this will become less of an issue.
I've been very lucky with respect to sporting injuries over the years. Excluding a back injury from rugby and lower leg surgery when I was 18. Can't really count those. But I'm starting to concede that those inbetween years of laziness may have taken their toll on me. For the past 12+ months I've been battling a persistant lower leg tendon injury. Came out of nowhere and seems determined not to go away. I do like that specialist treatment from the likes of physiotherapists are regarded as normal medical expenses in Sweden. As opposed to NZ. That means that not only is the cost of a visit to a physio only about one third of what it would cost me in NZ, it also goes towards reaching the financial target for the year. After which time my medical costs are met by the state. That, I like, as this latest battle has meant quite a few visits and prescriptions already. I fear I'm not done yet. The highlight this week has been a swollen ankle that arrived unexpectedly and resulted in a late night visit to the doctor surgery to make sure I wasn't about to die of galloping blood poisoning. They haven't phoned back, so I'm assuming that the blue colour is a good thing.
So now I'm at the unusual stage where the spirit is willing, but the body is saying Sod Off. I'm not sure who is going to win this battle. I haven't given up just yet. But it's gotten close a few times.
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