inertia

My good Serbian woman states what we in Australia know as the bleeding obvious: the less exercise you do, the harder it is to find the motivation to do any at all. All aspects of fitness—cardiovascular, muscle tone and muscle mass, and general energy level—fall away.

I’m suffering a debilitating physical inertia. I can count on the digits of one hand the days this month I’ve been on the bike or to the gym. Going to gym classes motivates me. An instructor leads, there’s music and other people to keep in sync with. Left to my own devices I sit and look at the equipment.

The gym is out of the equation when work takes me to Newcastle, Sydney and Darwin. Some hotels have gyms but I have no will to enter on my own and put myself through … well, what exactly?

My general health feeds into my inertia. I start the month with a cold, feel shit. My dodgy back has me leaning on the bedpost to gingerly lift and manoeuvre a leg into my shorts lest my back ping into spasm, so picking up weights in a pump class seems absurd.

I ride on Sundays but not in the last fortnight, not even to the local shops. The weather gets cold and dark and slinging a leg over the bike needs light and time. Nick at the bike shop says riding twice a week is a minimum to maintain current fitness; anything less and you’re pedalling backwards.

So it feels good to find the time to exercise on three consecutive days. On Sunday morning Rock and I chug up the north end of the Tourist Road to Olinda. On Monday morning I ride to the gym, ears zinging in the chill, and join what was my regular pump class, depleted by those who’ve dropped off as autumn deepens.

This afternoon I make my slowest ever ascent of the Mountain Highway. I feel so crap. Not one other cyclist is out on this sunny Tuesday afternoon.  My body is a lead balloon with jellied sausages for legs. It’s inertia, physical, mental, metaphorical and literal.

I haven’t ridden to our Collingwood office yet, but plan to ride once a week when the interstate travel drops off. In the Tokyo Bike Shop around the corner from the MM office in Peel Street live some spiffy single-speed machines for $800. Around another corner is Smith Street Cycles and their range of Charge singles. New bikes get bums on seats.

Aspiration is the natural enemy of inertia. Rock on.