Pounding the Road to Steemfest 3

This is part of @anomadsoul 's #roadtosteemfest freewriting initiative to get those of us attending SteemFest3 sharing a bit more about ourselves.

I don't recognise the person I've become in just the last four weeks. Every other day, I get up early and hit the road around 7am. Without even thinking too much about it. I've not been willing to do that sort of thing for so long. When I was in my very early twenties, I was at drama school and that meant I was doing a dance class pretty much every day. That's the last time that I had this sort of routine. A couple of years ago I got a swim pass and tried to get in the pool every other day, but I didn't have any sort of programme or accountability and it was nice and refreshing, but I don't think I was really pushing myself, nor did I know how to exactly, it just felt like a good sort of thing to do first thing in the morning on the way into work.

how does change like this come about? You can't force it. I've been moaning for months "I've gotta do more exercise (tomorrow)" and then doing nothing about it. All of a sudden, I was in a store buying running shoes and shorts and downloading apps to help me get better. And then I've just been out (the weather has helped, I look forward to my first rainy morning!)

I didn't do any exercise during the college holidays back in the eighties. I well remember the start of each term being a slog to get back into the routine. The first couple of tiems, my body was in shock - not badly, because I was 19 after all, but still no idea what was going on - I remember walking round like a zombie and having baths in Epsom Salts every night and that being the only possible relief until I got warmed up and used to doing it every day.

In those days warm ups and stretching was for cissies, now it's essential. I am sitting here now with a tennis ball under my foot, gently rolling away whatever that rolling action does to protect the whole of my lower leg. It's just another example of the recklessness that went with youth. Mad adventures, throwing yourself in and carrying on until you collapse. I was also eating an appalling diet by my present-day standards, but it was regular student fare in those days, plus I didn't have enough money and everyone knows you can't eat as well if you're short of cash.

Nobody gave us any advice, either on looking after our bodies outside of class, nor on what sorts of things we should eat. I hope they do a better job of that sort of thing these days, but who knows?

I really don't want to project beyond the present, but I think it's going to be really interesting to see how this stuff develops over the next few months before Krakow in November.