Range(r) of motion

‘Why won’t you click?’ I gripe, to no-one in particular. My Rhomboids are getting all anti-social in their group setting again and so I lie on my yoga mat with my foam-roller willing them to unfuck themselves… so I can go back to the furled up-hunched over position in front of my screen that I plan on occupying for the rest of my day.

Forty is suddenly when your body says, ‘you know all that stuff you’ve been doing for the last half of your life, yeah we actually hate it, and we’re done being a collaborator in your ergonomic delinquency’. I obviously feel quite hard-done by their sudden and vicious betrayal. Like some coal mining magnate who can’t understand why his workers are on strike. ‘Why can’t you just chose happiness?’ I wonder.

As much as I’d like to go all Margret Thatcher on them, or send in the Dragoons, I have recently made some concessions and ordered a standing desk. Or rather, I’ve bought two hydraulic metal stands with a widget that raises or lowers your workspace to its various presets. None of the work tops really appealed to me… and somewhere deep within my psyche that deeply austere version of me (that I’ve repeatedly tried, over the decades, to smother with a plastic-bag) started getting all twitchy at the prospect of spending money on a piece of laminated plywood.

And so I’ve committed myself to a trip to the depot for hardwoods and glue. And then probably again later in the day (because damned if we can buy everything we need on our first sojourn)

I looked up the Army Ranger Ruck march yesterday. Apparently its twelve miles to be completed in under three hours. Which is quite a brisk pace. Especially loaded up with somewhere between forty and 50lbs of gear. Its a tempo of about nine minutes thirty a kilometer.

I’m clocking in at 25lbs in my pack… and my pace as of yesterday averaged in at the required 9:30/km for my 5mi route. I doubt I could keep that up for another 7miles though, especially under additional load… so I’ve still got a long… eh… road a head of me. (and really, with my now venerable status, definitely on the outer edge of possible). Still, I guess its good to have something to aim for. (also my route is coastal and relatively flat, which is an additional cheat)

This is the terminus of my current route, a place called Breakfast Bay. 2500mi that way (he points out over the ocean) is Antarctica. The boardwalk goes down to the dunes on the other side of the brush, which, I’ve done it before… that spit of land in the distance is where the nature reserve starts and the ‘path’ ends. But its sandy, and trekking back with beach sand in your trail runners is just awful so I usually hydrate and turn around here.

In any event. This takes me about an hour and fifteen minutes. Which isn’t a huge inconvenient bite out of my day. And I quite enjoy it, gives me time to think about stuff (like what I want to be when I grow up), and my internet search history now includes walking tours like The Camino de Santiago and The Naksendo Way. Which I guess you have to be quite fit for, if you want to add them to your bucket list.

In other news I woke on Saturday, bleary eyed, hobbled across the house in search of a caffeinated beverage (as is my morning modus operandi) to discover the four year playing Playstation at 6am dressed up as a dinosaur… eh… superhero.

Me and my wife often bicker about where it comes from… she steadfastly maintains that this is all my genes and personality. Ha ha. I obviously dispute these accusations. But secretly I am quite proud and mentally high five myself. Ha ha. (Yeah job well done Joey!)

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