Ten Kilometres Excitement!

A few weeks ago I told you how I’d bought a cross trainer (it’s a machine you walk on, if you’ve never heard of such a thing, and it has a little display that tells you how far you've gone, and what your speed is, and how long you've been going). I said I’d tell you more if all went well and if it didn’t you’d never hear a thing more about it.

Well, it has been going well, I’m pleased to say. When I first got it, I could only do about half a kilometre before I got out of breath. However, I’ve been building it up gradually. I usually do about three kilometres but tonight at the end of three I thought hey, I don’t feel tired, I’ll do a couple more, and Annie Lennox was singing on the DVD player in tribute to Emily’s splendid new hairstyle, and I did a couple more - - and then a couple more - - and then I’d done ten kilometres, so I stopped, rather surprised.

And I wasn’t even very out of breath. I suppose the term for this is “getting fitter”. It’s rather cheering.

Swimming I can do, I’ve always been able to swim – well, I can’t remember not being able to. My first memory of swimming is doing a width at the baths, age Very Very Small, and being surprised and pleased, rather as I feel tonight.

At the moment I go swimming once a week and do forty-two lengths. Forty lengths is a kilometre and I add an extra two in case I’ve miscounted, and in the hope of finding the secret of Life, the Universe and Everything as in the Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. This impresses people, because not that many people seem to swim. “Wow! A kilometre!” But in the time I do forty-two lengths, my mother does thirty-two, which is half a mile. And she’s eighty-three. Now that’s impressive. Use it or lose it, she reckons, and she’s right.

So I’m pleased with my ten kilometres. Now I must do it every day.