So it's been two weeks now since I've ridden my bike in anger thanks entirely to the great hijacker of personal time that is the 7 year old's school holidays.
I did manage a couple of hours at daughter speed along the Newcastle waterfront last week and while a year ago that would have had me sucking in oxygen like a stranded whale, now that I am a finely tuned athlete it's hardly the kind of pace that's going to get my heart rate above resting unless I did the whole thing with my brakes on while peddling with one leg and bunny hopping every 5 metres. And I'm shit at bunny hopping.
We did see a pod of dolphins off the breakwater which was pretty excellent.
This country is awesome.
It has made me think though. How the hell is anyone supposed to get the time to exercise these days. I'm not so much complaining for me - I don't get to complain given my current situation work wise (in fact if you catch me complaining you should well and truly deliver a swift kick to whatever part of me is available and most likely to cause me maximum discomfort) - but seriously.
When I was working morning shifts I listened to a lot of radio in the car during the 0530 - 0630 bracket so I got to hear the daily litany of traffic chaos on Sydney's main roads. Putting aside the sense of smug satisfaction it gave me (it's a long way to anything from our house but at least there's no traffic), it clearly demonstrated the sheer number of people that start work at that ridiculous hour of the day who presumably don't return home until after 5 or 6pm at night no doubt entirely shagged.
My wife is in the same boat. Out at 0530 and back at 5pm arse busted.
The way we work these days seems almost deliberately designed to ensure we don't have the energy to escape the grasp of our corporate overlords even if we didn't all have 30 year mortgages to ensure our ongoing compliance.
When I finally made the effort to be slightly less morbidly obese last year, I at least had the advantage of shift work which gave me a significant number of daylight hours in which to walk or ride or carry big logs up and down hills.
Here's a thought. Instead of attempting to eliminate all physical activity from the work place lest the employer get sued because I hurt my back or sprained my dainty wrist, maybe it should become accepted that making it possible to get more physically fit (possibly, dare I say it, even during work hours) is an actual priority in the workplace. And maybe that should cut both ways.
If, just say, I was employed in a job that required me to occasionally restrain a person and then hold that person for a period while one of my workmates went to draw up the injections, MAYBE my employer should devote more time to my readiness for this than to tell me how to lift boxes during the annual mandatory manual handling workshop. And MAYBE I shouldn't be able to work in this area if I wasn't willing to utilise whatever time my employer gave me to prepare myself properly.
I'm game if they are.
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