On trudging up that hill again

Last summer, I decided to branch out on my exercise. I'd pushed myself into regularly doing 10 km walks and conquering Wellington's hills - I was climbing Mt Victoria three or four times a week, sometimes before going to work. So I borrowed a mountain bike from my uncle, the biking fanatic, and started biking. Towards the end of the summer, I'd worked myself up to 50 km road trips on the weekends (taking the train out to Paraparaumu and biking/walking back).

At the end of it, I tackled the Rimutaka Rail Trail, including biking to it from Upper Hutt and biking into Featherston. Took me hours, I got lost near the end (they could signpost the Cross Creek area better) and had to climb a fence and cut over a farm, and I was cramping up that night badly. But I did it. I'm proud of that.

This summer, I had intended to do it again - starting with reborrowing the bike and getting back into the road work. Additionally I had joined up with a gym to work on the rest of my body. My eventual goal was, in two or three years time, to work myself up into tackling the 150km Otago Rail Trail over three or four days.

I never got to use that gym membership. In between the initial payment and my intoductory session, my back suddenly went into agony, and you know the rest.

Now I get tired stumping around on crutches for 10 minutes. I'm looking at Mt Victoria now and cringing - it took me a long painful time to get my fitness up to the point where it was a pleasure to climb it and now I'll have to do it all again. Starting from learning to walk on my own two feet again.

*sigh*