Traumatised by Exercise

Today Nick was home sick so I used the opportunity to go for a walk. Having a toddler means exercising is a bit limited. She is too heavy to fit into the carrier, her legs are too little to walk very far and we have some killer hills. Pushing my 19kg daughter plus the weight of the pram wouldn't result in me getting fitter, it would result in me dying.


So I left her at home with her dad (who was dying of man flu) and got about exercising.


Exercising in itself is a little traumatic. See I am very unfit and my joints are making me feel like I am 50. Totally self inflicted I admit but seeing I am needing to wear a bikini in oh 1 months time in Fiji (crap I should have really started working out earlier) I decided to get going. So off I went huffing and puffing and chanelling the Little Engine who Could.


My hubby, who loves to go mountain biking through the bush told me of a track to go through. He told me he found it rejuvenating. It involved mostly downhill till I reached the Basin and then a walk around the basin till the Bridge and then back up the hill to the other end of our street. I had walked a short part of the track coming from the opposite direction near the Bridge and that part was flat.


Sounded good.


Turned out to be very good. Great. Heart -attack inducing almost. Why?


Because I got terrified and ended up sprinting most of it.

I had turned off our main road through the small suburb I live in, behind the bus shelter, and was walking down the path which was clearly marked as hubby had described. 


I had my ipod going and was happily moving along. I was several hundred metres down the track and clearly out of sight of the road.


As I continued down the path concentrating on where I put my feet I felt all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. All of a sudden my body was in full alert. I stopped and pulled my ipod out of my ears and stood still.


See we have a deer problem in the National Park and I wondered whether there had been an animal close to me that I had sensed but not heard. Don't think Bambi, think more Moose with big antlers. Think - keep your distance.


So I stand there scanning and then my eye sees something yellow and my heart almost stops. It is a yellow cap. On someone's head. On a man's head. A man haunched in the bushes. Not a man having a wee or walking his dog. A 50 year old man who I don't recognise as being a local.


We make eye contact and I feel sick in the stomach. That horrible, certain feeling that something is not right.


He rises to his feet and just stands there. Looking me dead in the eye. Shit.


I smile and say "Hi how you going". He keeps staring at me. Staring and saying nothing. He doesn't look homeless and he is of anglo appearance. Shit. Now this seems drawn out in the explaining but in real time it played out quite quickly.


EVERY part of me is now screaming to run. The good ol fight or flight response and my body has clearly chosen flight. The internal alarms are not just buzzing they are screaming.


Now it may not sound bad but this was one situation where everything was telling me 'GET OUT'.


It took everything I had to casually turn back in the direction I had come from and putting my hands to my mouth yell "Hurry up Nick, Gary I'll meet you at the bottom". I touched my watch and said to the guy "I'm going to beat them both today".


His head turned to look at where I had come from and at that moment I took off.


I was flying. I ran propelled by sheer panic. My arms were slashed by the sticks on the sides of the path and I kept going. Jumping over rocks, sliding, covering the distance as quick as humanely possible.


My lungs were burning and I kept sucking in the air tearing along the path with every bit of speed i could muster.


The sounds of my feet and the blood pounding in my ears was the soundtrack. I was seriously freaked out. Even typing now gives me goosebumps.


I raced to the bottom my ears searching for every twig snapping noise in the vicinity. 


I got to the bottom of the track and launched off a boulder. Fine on a mountain bike but my knees need improved suspension.


I was bolting. Truly running in a sweating, arms flailing, totally panic stricken way. 


And then the path became flooded. It was underwater.


The basin has mangroves around the outside. Probably due to the recent rainfall or overactive mountain bikers the track was fully  mud. I had no option but to keep going.


My feet were submerged. My white Asics were now totally covered in mud. I wanted to cry.


My legs felt like led, my chest was going to explode and now I was getting bogged in every.single. step.


Jumping on reeds where I could with mud splashed up my calves, I kept going.


I finally saw the bridge and ran even faster. How on earth I hauled my overweight body faster I will never know.


Up the trail knowing the end of my street was only 200 m ahead.


As I flew out of the trail into the street I was covered in mud, sweat streaming down my face, left arm bleeding and ran straight into the couple who live across the road from us.


He smiled at me but his wife saw me and I must have had the panic still on my face because she touched her husbands arm and they stopped walking. I couldn't even speak.I was breathing like a freight train.


I signalled I was going home and kept walking. Within a minute I was in our front gate.


The relief was overwhelming. I clung to the rock wall outside our house sucking in oxygen. My poor heart. Thank god for adrenalin. When I could breathe normally again I  shoved my shoes and socks in the washing machine, walked up the stairs and into the lounge room.


Hubby looked up. I told him my story. He listened and then having determined I was safe now said "well at least you got a good workout".


A good work out. I was seriously traumatised by the exercise.


I will be sticking to the road in future.