RPM

The past few months have seen a few firsts happen in my life. I’ve run my first marathon, played in my first piano recital and also, attended my first RPM class.

For the uninitiated, RPM stands for Revolutions Per Minute. Meaningless in itself, the term has been repackaged by the Les Mills global sports franchise into an indoor cycle class that mimics outdoors cycling. At least that’s what it says on the package.

The marathon had left me with a foot injury which means that I have been unable to run, dance, jump; do any high impact activity for the past month. To hold stir craziness and boredom at bay, I’ve been swimming, cycling, yoga-ing and pilat-ing but it hasn’t really worked. I got bored.

I needed more variation.

My husband, a RPM fan had been urging me to go for months.

Give it a go, he said religiously until weakened by his nagging, I succumbed.

So at the ungodly hour of 7.15am, I found myself perched on top of a stationary bicycle in a dark, airless room with 30 other people, all there to “feel the burn” Thankfully the instructor, a lycra -clad Australian seemed not prone to the fake cheering or whooping that inflicts many of his type (Fitness instructors. Not Australians). As the thumping music started, everyone around me started churning away at their pedals in Lance Armstrong fashion.

I started to feel quite peculiar. The room started to close in. My chest felt tight. I had an overwhelming urge to run outside and gasp in cool, clear air.

Did I listen to my body’s’ good sense? Did I leave the class before passing out from claustrophobia?

No. I kept going. Why?

Because I needed to feel the burn, baby.

Overcrowded. Tick. Airless. Tick. Dark. Tick. Welcome to RPM

Succumbing to the oxygen-deprived psychosis that RPM inflicts, I pedalled away. Up imaginary hills, around imaginary tracks; all the while humming the tune, We’re On the Road to Nowhere beneath my breath:

We're on a ride to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin' that ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride...


At last the class ended and I collapsed in a sweaty, spun out heap. My heart rate was off the charts. The burn had well and truly been felt.

So how did you find it? asked the Husband who had been pedalling away in his own Tour de France fantasy next to me.

It sucked. It’s stupid.

Eloquent as I am, I didn’t mention to him that I was planning to go again.

Suckerrrrr. That's me.

Why Run When You Can Walk?

Four years ago I wheezed my way through my first 5K fun run. It was the annual Crisis Square Mile Run; a charity that I volunteer with every Christmas.

After completing the race and getting my free banana and t-shirt, I felt a sense of achievement. I'd run 5k! Roll out the red carpet! Sound the horns! Where was the Queen to congratulate me?

What was a one-off foray into running soon grew legs and took hold. 5ks became 10ks which became half marathons. I graduated from level running to hills. I came to love earth and trails rather than plodding interminably on concrete. Yet if someone asked me if I am a Runner, I would say No. If this person then asked, Well why do you do all this running then? I would reply, Because it makes me feel free.

Bearing this in mind, I must've been feeling very free and easy the day that I committed to a marathon because quite why I did it is at times, beyond me. It definitely was not a long held dream of mine unlike my wish for naturally curly hair or to have seen Nureyev perform. No, my marathon journey was born from curiosity. Just to see if I could.


Come this Sunday when I gather with 15,000 other curious people at the start line of the Edinburgh Marathon, I hope I'll be able to find out.

If the Mountain Won't Come to Mohammed...

Ingleborough is the second highest peak in the Yorkshire Dales and my new hiking boots are just begging to be broken in.

Like A Fish to Water

In Australia I am a below average swimmer. I would swim but I was never one of those strong, sleek bodies that charged through the water doing lap after steady lap. In Oz I always swam in the Slow or Medium lane. I would never have dared dipped my toe in the Fast.

When I moved to London I stopped swimming. Having been spolit by Perths' open air, salt walter pools, I could not bring myself to become enthusiastic about swimming indoors in a heavily chlorinated, 25 metre urinal.



After a few years of non-swimming, I got free membership to one of London's best gyms. The pool in this gym was decent by London standards. It was still indoors and 25m but it looked clean. The husband said:

No excuses now. You can start swimming again.

But I didn't. By now I hadn't swum for years and was out of the habit until.....

the Paris Half Marathon.

Training for the half marathon forced me into the water again. I knew I needed to incorporate some cardio exercise that would not put weight on my joints. So I dived in and to my surprise I discovered that not only could I still swim, I wasn't bad at all. In fact, I was pretty damn good.

What happened? Three years of not swimming and in the first lap I become Esther Williams? Something's wrong.



I looked around and slowly the light went on.

I was in London.

A city of BAD swimmers.

As a general rule, Londoners are not great swimmers. It's not a part of their upbringing like it is for Aussies. They try, bless them and it's not their fault. They don't have the sea and lovely pools like us.

Still, this makes me feel great. I did nothing and became an above average swimmer. Over here I even swim in the Fast lane.

It doesn't get any easier than that.

The London Marathon

Oh my freaking god!

Today is the London Marathon. It's 7.30am and I have been up for the past two hours. I barely slept and my stomach is churning over with nerves.

Am I running?

No.

This pre-marathon frenzy is just my excitement and anticipation. My husband and four of our friends are running today in what is reputedly the best fundraising event in the world. For all of them, this is their first ever marathon. I've watched them work their guts out over the past 4-5 months in preparation and I feel so proud of them all. To run a marathon requires not just physical capacity but huge reserves of mental strength and discipline. It's very tough.

If this is how I feel I can't imagine what it must have been like for them over the past few days. No wonder when I met up with a few of them yesterday, they could barely eat or talk.

I have never been to the Marathon. I've heard it's brilliant. That the atmosphere is incredible and that it is a day where the whole of London comes together to cheer on our runners. I can't wait.

Go Team!

Puff Puff Paree

There comes a time in a woman's life where you realise that you gotta Use it or Lose It. By this I mean that once you hit your early to mid 30's, certain physical realities start to manifest. The onset of aging becomes apparent with clicking joints and funny aches. Things start to sag and bag. Your body is no longer a house of fun but a treacherous course that has to be navigated more carefully. For me, the onset on bodily decay was rather startling. For the past 29 years, I have danced so my body has served me, not the other way around. I did not like this new world order.

Luck would have it that around this time I moved to an area in London which is populated with joggers. When we first moved there, my husband and I would gaze at all the bobbing figures and joke about whether we would eventually succumb.

"Nah, " we'd mutter as we sank back into the depths of our sofa. "It's too cold. What's wrong with those people?"

Three years later and we are now those people. We run in the cold. We run in the rain. We run alone. We run with friends. We run in events and to our continual delight and amazement - our bodies don't fail us. We feel stronger than before and it's a good feeling.

Last weekend we ran in the Paris Half Marathon with a group of friends. It was our first big running event and we were all nervous. It was raining and the event was poorly organised. There were no toilets along the route and no energy drinks either. I have always defended Paris when others tut-tutted about the Parisian attitude of disdain but not this time. I ran the route with a semi full bladder and cursed the organisers the whole route. My tears on sight of the finishing line were not tears of relief and joy, but happiness that a toilet was perhaps close to hand.

Bladder relieved and divested of my sweaty, rain soaked garments, it sunk in that I had completed a test of endurance. Not only completed it but done so in a decent time and with energy to spare. I had trained to do so and had taken back the mastery of my body and mind. Not against time but against apathy and inertia.

Everyone ages, grows old and dies. But some of us are lucky to feel that they have a choice in how this happens. Running is seeing me through this mid 30's phase. It makes me feel like I have a choice and that I can do anything I put my mind to.

Not bad for a free activity in this day and age.