There’s a fine line…

I have never been what you might consider by any stretch of the imagination, to be athletic. I have never been particularly good at sports. The only two things that could be considered sporting pursuits that I have participated in have seen hockey – at school – and bowls. I did go to the gym over the years for periods of time, but was not all that consistent. I certainly wasn’t someone who enjoyed group fitness classes – although I did try – but have worked out that doing group fitness is not for me.

A little story here.

Years ago when my daughter was around 13 or 14 years old, we used to go to a small local gym together. I had my programme and she just did her own thing and we might chat while on the stationary bikes or other equipment. This particular day, she said to me, “Mum, there’s an aerobics class starting soon. Can we go?” I pointed out to her that I did not like group fitness classes of any sort. She said, “Please just this once?” After a few minutes of pressure from her, I agreed to go in just this once and the condition was that I would go up the back of the room. So, her and I went into the room and according to my plan, I stood next to her in the back row. At the front of the room, was the instructor. A pretty, energetic and obviously very fit instructor. She was running on the spot in front of the class. The next thing, she starts to run down the side of the class and to my horror, ended up right behind me. She then said to the class, “Now everyone turn around” and guess what! I was now almost eyeball to eyeball with the instructor and now my safe haven at the rear of the class was gone and I found myself at the front. I turned to my daughter and said, “I’m out of here!” and so I was. I left her to enjoy the class on her own!

So, I am very much a person who does want to exercise, but on my own terms.

The main thing I have always wanted to do is to play bowls. I come from a bowling family, with My grandad, my uncle and auntie and my mum and dad all being good bowlers. I tried playing for a while when my daughter was a babe, some 39ish years ago, but it was difficult with a young family and while breastfeeding my daughter. I bet there wouldn’t have many bowling clubs with a breastfeeding mother in attendance as a player! Anyway, it was too difficult to fit around family life, so I vowed I would play on retirement and that is exactly what I signed up to do. Having a variety of health issues, I had to work around these and being able to play as much as I could. I have had two operations since joining the club and I have had to work up to my return and work around my limitations and figure out what was doable for me and safe.

I am usually pretty good at being self-aware and monitoring how I am doing and not prone to generally over-taxing my body. However, yesterday I had an interclub game in the morning of 18 ends and then was talked into doing a club championship game of pairs in the afternoon. It seemed like a good idea at the time as three of us were at the club and the other player – after a quick phone call – came to join us for 18 ends. I started off not too badly, but about half way through, I could almost feel the energy draining out of my body. I tried to persevere, but I felt increasingly sluggish and started to feel a bit light-headed. With about 5-6 ends to go, I turned to the other skip and said that things felt like they were getting too much for me. Even in a competition game, there is a rule that if all players are in agreement that a game can be forfeited after the 14th end. Especially, if the leading pair had a significant lead which was nigh on impossible to come back from. We never got past 3 points. So, we were within the rules to call the game. So, that’s what we did.

I found myself so tired that it was all I could do to pack up my bowls and walk to the car to go home. I was so tired, that I wasn’t even up to having a drink in the clubhouse as I would usually do. I usually have zero alcohol beer by the way!

I got home and my husband came home and I was blobbed out in front of the TV. I told him what had happened and that I felt bad that I had had to call time on the game. As he always does when I feel I am not doing so well, he reminded me how far I had come after four years of health issues, pain and two operations and at one point living on morphine with excruciating pain. Just being able to get to bowls at all is a bit of a minor miracle. I do need reminding myself of these things – with his help – and I must try not to be too hard on myself.

Today is a bit of a rest day and an opportunity to recover from yesterday. Hopefully, next week I will be more sensible and stick to what I know that I can cope with so that my games of bowls can be enjoyed not endured!

Here’s a podcast I have called “There’s a fine line…” I hope you enjoy it.