There was a time time when I could just slap on a pair of trainers and sprint out the door for a one hour training run. Oh to be young again, and in possession of a full set of operating ligaments. These days, physical fitness is is a highly planned military operation.
On Sunday I decided to take myself off to the gym. I try to alternate between outdoors training and gym treadmill training every week. A lot of self proclaimed purists will tell me that treadmill running isn't real running. They can think that, but I'll stick to my own beliefs. I would suggest that they don't do a lot of autumn or winter running in the north of Sweden. Anyway, we're getting off the subject a bit here. I was a little pushed for time, because we had come back from tending to the horse, it was laundry day, and we had a family dinner to attend. Time to throw on the sneakers and be out the door. If only.
First up, it's 10 minutes of leg massages. I don't know if leg masages fall into the category of self abuse or not, but frankly it's more like hitting them them with the electric paddles of life. No pleasure involved, I can assure you all. After the massage, comes the application of linament. To get those softened muscles properly warmed up. Then it's on to the feet and a good powdering. Not for the delightful scent, but to prevent skin damage. At this point I should note that my shelf of bathroom "essentials" is rapidly overtaking that of my wife. Who am I kidding, I've starting spreading onto a second shelf now. Next I'm into the kitchen to prepare my electrolite replacement drinks. One to take with me, and one to leave in the fridge for when I get back. Now I'm ready to get dressed.
First item off the peg are compression training socks. I don't know if you've ever tried compression socks before, but, if you haven't, they are about as easy as trying to fit your entire lower leg into a condom. The good news is that, once you spent 5 minutes battling with them and avoiding any eye injuries, they are incredibly comfortable and do a lot to prevent injuries. After the socks comes the compression tights. This equates to trying to squeeze your condom clad legs into a slightly larger condom. By this stage your entire blood supply now only exists from the waist upwards. Then it's the shirt on. Thank god for a simple normal exercise. Well sort of. Before the shirt I have to decide if I want to wear my heart rate monitor, or if I'm going to just tough it out and hope for the best. The shirt is followed by the GPS training watch. If I'm going to the gym, I'll switch it on now so that it can match up with the little sensor in my shoe. If I'm going to be outside then I have to wait until I'm out there so that it can hunt for satellites. Forward planning and decision making needed there. And that leads on to another dilemma. If it's an outdoors day, do I want a hat, gloves, both, or neither. It's a bit tough to know for sure at the moment, 7 or 8 deg C is neither one thing nor the other. Anyway, time to strap the shoes on, making sure that my custom made insoles are sitting exactly where they should be. With the shoes in place, it's time for stretches. About 10 minutes spent on that. Then I can collect my magic potion drink, and I finally get to go outside the door.
That process typically takes around 45 mintues.
And then we train.
Coming home, it's a reverse process. 10 minutes of stretching followed by 5 minutes to remove to suction attached compression clothing. Attach the GPS watch to the computer so that it can download today's data while I'm in the shower. Good long shower taking extra care to make sure there's no stray linament left anywhere. You learn that lesson the hard way, believe me. A couple of minutes stretching after showering to free up those muscles which had decided to die whilst standing still in the shower. An ice balm goes onto my leg muscles to reduce any swelling, followed by a pair of compression recovery socks. Condoms revisted. Warm leggings next, can't have anything getting cold. Grab the replacement drink from the fridge and head off to the computer to view my efforts. A couple more stretches followed by a period of raised leg sitting and relaxing. My time is pretty much free at this point, for the next couple of hours. Before I have another session of massages and an application of anti-inflammatory gel.
So, in summary, the time I spend getting ready for, and recovering from, a training workout, is around 2 hours. Which means that at least 5 days a week, I'm spending more time organising physical activity than I spend actually doing the activity itself. In fact, I reckon that I expend so much energy during those processes, that I'm going to give up the training, and just do the before/after rituals instead. Seems a much simpler solution.
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