I turned 60 the day before yesterday. And when we’re not in Lockdown I go to the gym every other day.
I suppose I’m reasonably fit for my age – although I tend to notice the things that I can’t do more than the things that I can do.
I have a Morton’s neuroma in both feet (but it’s fine so long as I don’t wear heels). I have osteoarthritis in my knuckles (but I do the exercises the doctor suggested, and it doesn’t often flare up). I was told about 15 years ago that I suffer from ‘wear and tear’ of the vertebrae in my neck (but that was a load of baloney – the pain was due to not moving enough, rather than moving too much, as proved by the fact that it doesn’t hurt any more). And I have an iffy hip.
But anyway, when I first joined this gym, aged 57 and a half, I decided that I would make sure I was still going when I turned 60. And as my birthday approached I decided that I would actually do a gym session on the day.
Then, of course, Lockdown happened. No gym.
The lovely trainers from the gym put on virtual training sessions every day, so that was better than not being able to go at all. And I’ve got the spare bedroom set up with a yoga mat and space on the window ledge for the laptop.
There are new sessions available online every day at 9:30 and 6pm. I planned to do the 6pm session on my birthday. I was working until 5, should be home before half past, plenty of time to get changed and generally sorted out before it started.
But then life got in the way a bit. I’m a kitchen designer – and someone came in to buy one of my kitchens. It’s not the sort of job where you can just say ‘It’s 5 o’clock, I’m going now’. It was gone half 5 by the time I got away. And after 6 by the time I got home.
So I wasn’t able to do my 60th birthday workout on my 60th birthday. But – virtual workouts have a major advantage over real life workouts. You can do them later.
So yesterday morning, I did my birthday workout. And in honour (is that the word I’m looking for??) of my birthday, the trainer had included 60 burpees.
60.
In blocks of 15.
It wasn’t just burpees. In the 45 minutes session there were lunges, split squats, bicep curls, Russian twists, sit ups, ab saws, goblet squats, shadow boxing, star jumps…
Between you and me, I could only manage 10 burpees in the time allocated for doing 15. So by the end of the session I’d only done 40 out of the 60. But another advantage of working out in the spare bedroom rather than in an actual gym is that you can keep going after the session has finished…
So I had a little rest, then I did five more. Then another five. That got me to 50. And then, because I’m bloody stubborn, I did the last 10 all in one go, just to prove that I could. And I could.
Yes, it was hard. Yes it hurt.
Yes I was bloody pleased with myself.
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