Fitness in the Park from a Recent Convert

 

It's the fourth Thursday in November today.  I thought about completely ignoring Thanksgiving this year.  It seemed to be the easiest thing to do at this busy time of year.  Instead, we enjoyed a mini feast last Saturday night, and now there is a twenty pound turkey sitting in my refrigerator.  More on that later.  Today's post is about something for which I have become increasingly grateful:  Fitness in the park.

For years I have avoided the word fitness. I have produced a variety of excuses over the years, managing to convince myself that the following year would be a better one to pursue a more rigorous course of exercise.  By the time I hit forty, shortly after we moved to Melbourne, I realized that I had spent two decades procrastinating. Enough was enough.

Surely it helped that everywhere I looked people were biking, kitesurfing, running or going to the gym. I decided to stick with walking, and even wrote an entire post that argued that walking was superior to running. Then, about this time last year, I lost my walking companion. All of the sudden walking was not quite so much fun. I missed the companionship more than anything. I decided I was finally ready to take the plunge and try something new in my quest to get fit.

Enter the local mums' outdoor fitness group (with one or two dads thrown in), led by Greg.

A former rugby player, Greg is the quintissential fitness instructor. His entire life, at least as far as I can tell, revolves around training and exercise. When he is not running, swimming or biking himself, he is training others of all ages from senior groups to the local primary school swim team.

I first met Greg at our local sports and aquatic center three years ago. He was the instructor for J's first foray into swimming lessons, and J liked him immediately. Swimming class, in fact, was just about the only thing that made him smile in those early days of our move to Melbourne.  I remember feeling very grateful to Greg for his patient, enthusiastic instruction.

The next time I ran into Greg was when our sons ended up on the same cricket team. I recognized him immediately, but didn't get a chance to speak much with him, as he never stays around to watch the interminable cricket matches.  He can't stand the slow pace of cricket, and chooses to go off for a run on Friday evenings instead.  

At one of those cricket matches I also met Diana*, mum of the tallest member of the cricket team.  Diana is the type of person I look for when I am thrown into a group of strangers.  I could tell at once that she was genuinely friendly, full of life and easy to talk to.  One Friday night she happened to mention that Greg was her fitness instructor, and before I knew it, I had agreed to join a group of (mostly) mums that meet M/W/F just after school drop off at a nearby park.

'It's now or never,' I thought. With a fair amount of trepidation, I approached the group for their first session of the 2013 school year.  It turns out I was right to be worried.  They all looked very fit and several sizes smaller than me.  I introduced myself, and began warming up.  

The first few sessions have now faded to a merciful blur.  I can remember gasping for breath, feeling pain in parts of my body that had hitherto gone undetected and being annoyed at myself for telling so many people that I had decided to do this.  Otherwise I could have quit with no embarrassing questions to worry about later.   I also regretted very much the two lost decades of my twenties and thirties.  For the first few weeks, the pain followed me into my house.  Hanging up the washing became an excruciating chore.  Bending down to reach the lower cupboards in my kitchen was out of the question.  I often snagged one of the kids to get out whatever pot or pan that was needed.   

I soon became familiar with the pattern.  Five or ten minutes of warming up, followed by lunge walking and then a variety of sprinting exercises. Before I joined this group, I would have told you that suicides were terrible. I soon discovered that there are many worse drills than suicides. Burpees are a special form of torture, although the flag race is a close contender in the torture department.  Sessions are rounded out with step ups, skipping rope, dips, boxing, push ups, sit ups, weights, planking and laps around the park.

Partway through the year Greg produced a giant rope, the kind that makes me think of securing a massive cruise ship to a dock (see the photo at the top of the post, taken in Perth's Botanic Gardens). He looped it through a hook and then instructed us to take hold of each hand while flinging it up above our heads thirty times, then from side to side, and finally thirty more rotations in an alternating snakelike pattern. I can't imagine there are many ways that you can burn more calories per minute than working out with that rope.

If pride kept me from quitting initially, it wasn't long before I discovered other reasons for returning.  I began to notice that I felt really good as I walked back home.  It took a few months for the association to become a solid one, but eventually my brain began to connect that happy feeling afterward with the effort itself.  One day I read a news article online that claimed that exercise produced the same highs as both marijuana and cocaine.  I have no experience with either of those two drugs, but the article made sense to me.

Another bonus was the time spent outdoors on the grass, next to a variety of enormous trees,  and underneath the blue expanse of the sky.  Surely that contributed to generating a positive attitude.  No matter how much I did not want to join the group on a particular day, I always felt, without fail, happier afterward.  

The final benefit of fitness in the park has been getting to know a new group of friends.  This part took awhile, primarily because I had no breath available for speaking in the early weeks.  It was all I could do to take in Greg's instructions and keep breathing.  I had no energy for conversation.  Most of the mums had known each other for years, and had numerous connections outside of fitness, so I spent most of my time listening.  Gradually I came to know them better, and now the chance to chat, swap stories and exchange advice (always a necessity for parents) has become one of my primary motivations for going.  

I suspect there are days when Greg feels we are talking far more than we should be.  However, his motto is, "Exercise has to be fun.  Otherwise why would we keep doing it?"  So aside from the occasional reminder to work a little harder, he puts up with the chatter, and even participates himself.

 

*Name changed.

Comments

[Aunt Marion]

Good for you Christie! I do well to do a few laps at the walking track at the rink!!
Happy US Thanksgiving!

[Christie]

Thanks Aunt Marion. It's great to be able to exercise outdoors year round in Melbourne.

[Nikki]

Hi Christie,
I'm so glad to hear that you're taking time for yourself:) I'm definitely struggling in the health/fitness area. I guess I just need to make the time like you have. I look forward to reading about your journey.

[Christie]

Hi Nikki,
I have to say that the fitness in the park only works for me right now because I can go straight after dropping them off at school. When the kids are home, it completely falls by the wayside. I hope your kids enjoyed the recent snowfall.