I was born fast. I walk, talk and think fast, which is just as well given the number of sticky situations I’ve had to talk myself out of. It’s my contention, though I have no scientific evidence to back it up, that there are two types of people, those who are fast and those who stand on escalators. I mean what’s that about? Are they waiting for instructions? Don’t they realise how short life is?
I know not if my obsession with speed is a result of nature or nurture, but my father had no tolerance for circumlocution and demanded speed in both word and deed.
It was the speed element that attracted me to athletics. I was bullied as a child and needed to be nimble My biggest claim to fame, as I never get tired of telling you, is that I represented my area in the Mini Olympics. We won the trophy for best effort and paraded it around the estate to much acclaim. Unfortunately, we moved house soon afterwards, but I could certainly have been a contender and given Usain Bolt a run for his money….of course, we didn’t have men in women’s sports in those days!
Once the fitness bug bit it never left me and I joined a gym as soon as I could afford it. I remember after I’d been about 2 years in the very first gym I joined, one of the trainers told me that when he and the owner first laid eyes on me they made a bet on how long I’d last, wagering somewhere between a week and a month. I wouldn’t blame them. I was a punk then and trained in white clown makeup, with my grey hair standing on end.
Training has been the only constant in my life, something that's kept me semi-sane. When I’m sad, bad, happy or mad, I work out, and I don’t mean sitting around on weight machines while scrolling on a mobile phone. I reckon those machines were invented because gyms couldn’t sell memberships to an empty room. No, I mean high-energy functional exercise; pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, squats and burpees, moves that come in handy if you have to run for your life.
I was going to post photos of me climbing rope and doing chin-ups but I reckoned I’d make you all jealous. So I didn’t!
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Photos are my own