Ass-Kicking Weekend

No, I wasn’t mistreating little donkeys. You may recall, however, the little note in my last post about needing to kick my own ass. This being necessary because for the last month or so I’ve done very little focused exercising. Yes I’ve done my yoga every morning and have gone for the stray walk or played around with tennis once or twice, but it has become a distressing pattern that I often go days with no exercise.

This weekend was great though. A very long, hard week concluded with me in an inert lump on the couch Friday night and Saturday dawned very rainy and unpromising. But around 9:00 the clouds parted and the sun started coming out. By 11:00 I was mopping up a tennis court and then got to hit around with a very good player who ran me ragged for over an hour and a half. I haven’t had the chance to play with someone who can do that to me (as well as put some pace on the ball!) in a very long time. At several points I thought my chest was going to explode and/or I would vomit. It was fantastic! Originally I’d intended to be very productive Saturday afternoon, but I was so exhausted I could barely muster up the energy for some peanut butter toast and a hot bath. I rallied later in the evening and was able to make a nice dinner but fell asleep at a shamefully early hour.

Sunday was also fantastic. I got to play outside in the mud! I’ve had a mountain bike for about ten years but it was always just my means of transportation. The most action it ever saw was the occasional moment on a dirt or gravel path. Sunday morning changed that. A new friend, Chris, introduced both the bicycle and I to mountain biking. I suspect I might be a bit of a pansy – again I had a bit of the “chest burn, wanna vomit” sensation on the uphill and I also go pretty slow on the downhill – but it was it was really fun and beautiful. The sun was out, we were playing in the woods and I ended up very tired and very, very dirty. What is not to like about that?

And now that I’m an anatomy nerd it is fun to think about all the specific muscles that are on the sore and achy side.