Gray Nomad,  gray with an a for active seniors lifestyle.
 
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My gray nomad man is getting his ‘gray with an a for active’ backJ. He went for a gentle stroll by a lake at Mooroopna Victioria while I worked out to get ready for my next session of the Extreme measures, fitness program I am doing.

I ran in the park with the dog, and Reg walked. His effort would have more than equaled mine, he is recovering from an illness so it’s still a big effort he is making. :-). I pushed myself harder than I have pushed myself before, could not have run further, under my own pushing efforts,  but not as hard as the trainers at the Extreme Measures  course I am doing at my gym, push me three-four- times a week, that's just short of ~ well, the word says it, EXTREME!.

I have to keep telling myself, while I am doing it, and afterwards. ‘I CAN DO IT’.

I hadn’t deliberately chosen to put myself on such a punishing regime at my age, if I had felt I was achieving my goals on my own, I never would have stepped this far out of my comfort zone, effort wise or financially, to have enrolled in this course. I had set myself fitness goals I wanted to achieve for me, over a three-year action plan period. I achieved an enormous amount in the first ten months, but I had made little gain for almost two years and I chose to step outside my comfort zone to try to come home, within the three-year goal plan period, with a great closing effort.  

The effort has been exhausting, I even slacked off on my writing for a few days, and started to allow self-doubt and the awful four letter word, ‘can’t’’, to be entertained in my mind. Then the possibility of a worse four letter word, ‘quit’, snuck into my head as a possibility after Friday’s grueling effort when I had not even recovered from the athletic, one hour work out in the Shepparton Park on the Thursday. I gave myself the weekend as recovery days, and I have mind and body back focusing on my goals again as of Monday, the start of my week two of the eight week, Extreme Measures program.

Thursday’s park workout, consisted of running up stairs two at a time, press ups, running down steps star jumps, repeated numerous times, then jogging, interspersed with lunges, pushups,  sit ups, press ups, running up and down steep hills for one hour, nonstop and no concession for age or low aerobic fitness.

I made an effort to focus on those things I love, nature, the river, the parkland, trees, green grass and rose gardens. I LOVED that much of Tuesday, all of Thursday’s and some of Friday’s exercise was done out of doors. This pleased the gray nomad nature lover’s soul of mineJ.

 I saw it as a positive that we were working-out as a group with trainers, as it gave me the confidence to do exercise out of doors.

Friday’s Extreme measures program began with my barely able to take those steps two at a time and certainly not at a running pace, I part ran and mostly walked up those stairs. I managed to do all the exercises required that day though still exhausted from the Thursday, I was grateful there were more upper body and weight work outs, allowing my feet to recover from the running of the previous day.  I had to sit out one short sprint, and sat down and rested during one exercise. I was proud of what I achieved. I found the Chinese wrestling we did, outside with a partner, great fun and easy compared to the work out of the previous day.

We went inside and did circuit training. In this, I found the hearing impairment I have, a problem, as the main instructress did not understand that yelling into a microphone, fast instructions does not make words clearer.  If your hearing impaired like I am , you know rapid loud words with a head turned away is harder to hear than normal volume normal speed speech and many of us seniors throw in a bit of lip reading too, so talking to you while looking away from you, makes it all just muffled noise. One wonderful member of the group would ‘show me’ the action I was required to do, whenever I looked in her direction with that, ‘confused look’, on my face.

When I got home after the work out, on Friday night, I just about fell, rather than stepped up the step to the porch and fell through the door.  Week one Extreme Measures completed. They said ‘if you cannot say something positive, do not say anything’, and so I cannot say how I was feeling’.

I had asked those who have done the course, ‘Will it get easier’, they replied, ‘No it gets harder’.  I began to think, ‘I had to have been mad or just plain insane to have enrolled to do this course at my age and fitness level’, and that, ‘the gym had been unwise to recommend that this would be within my ability to do it’.

I don’t like to quit anything, I set myself and I remind myself I chose to do the extreme measures, for a reason, to achieve an increased fitness goal and pep my metabolism up. My reasons to enroll in a group program like this one, is because healthy eating and activity levels that had allowed me to release a large part of my excess weight were not allowing me to release the last of my excess body fat, I am still soft and wide in the middle. I did not intend to go on any stupid, harm my muscle and bone density diet, just to strive to achieve a goal weight and I was not prepared to quit on my goal and believe it was unachievable. Releasing this excess fat by increasing my aerobic activity and strength training through this Extreme Measures program is going to help me trim up and maintain my bone density at the same time. This effort now and a bit of ongoing effort to maintain the fitness level I am pushing to reach, will reward me with benefits in body and bone health for years to come.

I am thinking of enquiring if ‘The Crocs’, the local Masters Swimming team, would like to have me as a member to train for competitive swimming in seniors events, once I have completed my extreme measures program. Never in my life competed in competitive sports.  I am also hoping to fit gym classes into my routine along with my current regular weight workouts at the gym. Already my mind is planning where this increased fitness will take me and after Thursday, I knew I had the ability to tackle any of the great bush walk climbs that Reg and I did in our younger days. The Horn at Mt Buffalo and The Pinnacle at the Grampians come to mind as hikes we have loved and efforts I had stopped making following some of the injuries and illnesses of my mid life. The bodies amazing ability to recover, if given time and encouragement, always fills me with awe.

What I am doing in this program, will certainly achieve both those goals. I planned that if I am to get through this Thursday and Friday sessions, I need to train from Monday onward this week, and so I have lifted, pushed and pulled weights in the gym last night and done some aerobic fitness training by running in the park with the dog today.

I am programming my body and mind in preparation for my next Extreme measures sessions. Once I complete this coming Thursday and Friday’s back to back rigorous fitness training sessions I can proudly know I am a quarter of the way through the course.

I will allow myself to entertain the words, ‘pace myself’ , also ‘modify to within my ability’, in my head and I am working VERY HARD, programming my mind to focus on thinking and believing, ‘I CAN’.

Time I set myself a few rewards for effort as incentives along the way. J, lol, in my forties, on a professional income, my mind might have thought of things like, loose diamonds, as my reward. For this Extreme Measures goal completion, at sixty three, I’ve little desire for adornment incentives, so I purchased a clean skin bottle of sparkling chardonnay and popped it away in the fridge. I will toast my achievement when I complete my extreme measures program, with the family, on Christmas day.

 
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