TRAINING UPDATE 2

My determination to properly prepare and train for my planned hike continues. I asked Marie, my physio, what I might do to prepare for a 1000k walk and she recommended (a) that I walk – always go to a professional for advice! -, and (b) that I try pilates. The logic of this latter advice defeated me as my understanding of pilates was that it is a sort of hippy yoga with lots of plinkey plonky music and incense sticks. It turns out to be less about realigning spiritual chakras and more about realigning vertebra perfectly comfortably fused from years of stooping inertia.

So this evening I turned up for a local class and I discovered that the reason tutors play whale call music and burn fragrant joss sticks is to disguise the uncontrollable and involuntary farting brought on by flaccid humans straining to imitate downward dogs, upward cobras and upturned cockroaches (see below). This is also the reason experienced pilates practitioners wear those tight fitting pants i.e. to avoid the embarrassing fluttering effect evident around the arse of more loose fitting track-suit bottoms.

My class was led by an impossibly lithe instructor who conducted the class with an encouraging smile and the cold hard eyes of a prison camp guard. My lovely wife Fern, a pilates veteran, positioned herself beside me – initially I supposed so she could offer encouragement but it turns out it was so she could get the best view of my straining thrashing incompetence.

There followed an hour of slow motion sweating during which my constant straining wheeze was punctuated only by the aforementioned occasional rectal “parp” – and indeed “parps” that might have escaped from other orifices. The unavoidable realisation that my ‘core’ might not actually be the taut iron mesh I might have hoped for was finally confirmed and demonstrated for all to see when I attempted to execute the apparently simple exercise of sitting on the floor with knees (my own) tucked against my chest, rolling back onto my shoulders then forward into my original sitting position. Now, even if I say so myself, I think my journey backwards was terrifically well executed but while others then rolled effortlessly back to their starting position I steadfastly remained on my back, an upturned turtle pathetically rocking forward and back and only able to recover myself by flaying with my arms and legs inelegantly like a Kafkaesque cockroach seeking to right itself. Because exercises are executed in batches of 3 or 5 by attempt 3 even the our flint-hearted instructor felt the need to intervene. “When you start to feel yourself begin to roll forward give yourself a little push” she advised. “OK” I said, but internally I though “With want? I am on my back curled into a tight ball, what muscle or group of mussels can I possibly use to push myself upright?”. I did nevertheless try a teeth clenching heave but this only resulted in me toppling sideways where I had a perfect view of the 12 other participants elegantly rolling to their upright sitting positions.

Will pilates be useful training for my hike? Well during my hike I’ll certainly need to walk upright and to breath, two skills I previously though I had mastered but apparently not… so I’ll continue with the classes. However, If I fail to complete the hike these classes will certainly have prepared me for public humiliation. On that point I must be clear that should I not succeed the amount of ridicule I will be prepared to accept from a person will be in direct proportion to the amount they are prepared to donate to the Huntington’s Disease Association http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/BrendanMajor . I should note that on this basis the staff at Gibson Financials will be entitled to point and jeer at me for the rest of my life – so I should thank them very much for their very generous support.