Push It real good!

Hello, dear reader!

And welcome to the end.

The end of what, you may ask. The end of the world? The end of this blog? (you should be so lucky) The end of life as we know it?

Well, no. Nothing quite as dramatic.

I’m talking about the end of my 51st year of continual existence.

Old News
Yes, the next time you read one of these poor offerings the year will have turned once more and your most humble blogger will have reached the ripe old age of 52, an age I used to think of as ‘old’ but which I now realise is nothing of the sort.

Because it’s all relative, isn’t it? Our views on what constitutes young and old changes along with our own advancing years. What once seemed like the full flush of strength and vigour, those days when we knew it all and could do anything is now revealed as insufferable youth. What once seemed like decrepit old age is revealed as experience, wisdom, and the strength of endurance.

Or so it seems to me.

But of course there’s a trade off.

That Sinking Feeling
For every year that teaches us how to do stupid stuff slightly slower and with more deliberation the machinery that enables us to do so begins to fail us that little bit more and the bits that do still work need to be maintained all that more carefully.

Any long term sufferers of this blog will know of my own struggles with fitness. As a pretty-much-full-time wheelchair user getting the regular exercise that seems so necessary to oil the joints and keep the pounds off the waistline can be a struggle at times and, although I have set off on the good ship ‘fitness’ a few times those journeys never seem to last that long before said ship sinks without a trace.

Not this time though!

As this post mentioned, I joined a gym! True this is an assisted gym with machines that both support and help the movement of joints, muscles and tendons that have done pretty much nothing for the last few decades. It’s something I’m enjoying immensely and, so far, I’m yet to miss but one of my twice-weekly sessions.

And, on top of this, I’ve been trying to get a little more in the way of good aerobic exercise too.

Work Out
This mainly takes the form of regular ‘trundles’ , something which, again, is an old habit that seems to have fallen by the wayside at some unspecified point.

 

But now, armed with a brand new and (touch wood) fully functional wheelchair, those trundles are back on the menu, especially as I now have a much better way of tracking them.

To set the scene I’ve been using an app on my phone called Strava to track these trundles. It did a job, of a sort. It measured the distance travelled and the speed at which said distance was traversed. It meant, through a little bit of easy maths, I could guesstimate my rough ‘steps’ for any given trundle.

Now I don’t actually do many steps as you can probably imagine. It’s not really in my wheelhouse but every mile traveled equals around 1000 steps so as long as you know how many miles you’ve trundled you can approximate the equivalent.

However,

The Fast Track
As an early birthday present (he said, bringing the blog post full circle) my wúnderwifey, Tina has bought me a Garmin Vivoactive Fitwatch which not only does all the above but can be set to track not steps but pushes! This, along with the calorie tracker, heart monitor and sleep score is a game changer. It means I can accurately measure exactly what I’ve done and compare that to the target the watch sets me for my daily ‘pushes’. It seems designed for me as I set sail once more on the good ship ‘fitness’.

Now if only the weather holds up


Until next time!




#





Hey, there! If you enjoyed reading any of the above, why not take a look at some of my published work? Below you’ll find links to a number of short stories I’m lucky enough to have included in anthologies. I’d love to know what you think. My debut novel, The Heart That Died, is available now as both paperback, E-book, and on Kindle Unlimited, so I’m adding the link to that, too.

Oh, and if you like what you look-see, a nice, positive review would also be most welcome.

The Heart That Died


New Tales Of Old



Death Ship



Pestilence: Drabbles 1



Reaperman: Drabbles 3



The Musketeers Vs Cthulhu


Eldritch Investigations