Spinning again and again


I went spinning again today – the first time I’ve had back to back sessions over two days. I had hoped to go running this evening, but I had a feeling (borne out by the revolting greyness outside the window) that running at the track would be a bad idea, and I wanted to get some exercise.

Any successful fitness regime involves a certain amount of selfishness; being able to reject the demands of others, leave work unfinished and emails unanswered, downing tools to leave the office. Or else you’re abandoning your family early in the morning, or leaving home late at night when you could be enjoying time together, to pound the streets or to find other ways to generate sweat.

However, you need to be able to say no to some demands – there’s only so much you can do. And I find that by moving around and raising my heart rate, my brain works better – I think more clearly, and I don’t collapse into a dull mess in the late afternoon.

Well, sometimes.

Today I banged out a good session – I averaged 242 watts for the session, according to my bike computer, which was a significant improvement on yesterday (189) and close to my recent best (254 watts on Saturday, probably enabled by having a big breakfast of eggs before the session, rather than a muffin and an apple) so I felt pretty good. I undid some of the good work by eating a packet of crisps at five o’clock, when the dreaded hunger pangs arrived (why don’t I remember to keep something healthier, like sunflower seeds, to snack on at such low times?) and then compounded this by meeting a friend who’d just flown in from Kuala Lumpur, for a pint of Stella and a huge bowl of French fries.

(It’s always disconcerting for me that Stella Artois is a premium beer in the world outside of the UK. It’s something people aspire to drink, that is meant to taste good. OK, in the UK it’s marketed as a premium product, but that really is a premium in terms of strength. Back in Croydon it was nicknamed ‘wife-beater’ – stereotypically the conspicuous consumer of Stella is a man in a stained white vest (singlet for you American types) who batters his spouse. Or drinks so much he’ll batter anyone’s spouse, possibly because he can’t identify his own. Hardly an image that fits with wise French peasants hankering after something special. Unless they like domestic abuse. But in Singapore, nobody would understand what you meant if you referred to having a few too many pints of ‘beater.)

So home I went, and bathed the child, who was remarkably cooperative. Apart from running around being berserk like usual, and then not going to sleep for an hour. But those are simple things to deal with, and when she mumbles “I need cuddles” it’s hard to get annoyed.

Well, sometimes.

It was her second day at school and I got to take part in the school run this time – it’s a simple matter to get a bus from outside our building and then down to the school, deposit her with her bag and then rush to the MRT to take an underground train to work. This is pretty easy right now as I only need to do it twice a week – from January it steps up to five days and starts to collide with meetings I have with San Francisco. But for now it’s copeable. La Serpiente rushed into the classroom without even looking back – I felt proud and happy to be superfluous here, especially as she still greets me when I get home at night with unambiguous joy. Even if I do stink of booze.

Both the wife and I are exhausted though. We watched a motorcycle race from last week, and then she fell asleep on the sofa while I had a call with a man in New York, who, at the other end of the day, was also trying to avoid waking up his child. I have recently rediscovered the joy of Bluetooth headsets. Sartorially they’re verboten outside of the house, and my company Dell laptop has no Bluetooth so it’s useless at work, but at home I can have perfectly good video calls and not mess up my hair with a big set of over-the-skull headphones, and still not disturb La Serpiente’s sleep. Happy days.

Tomorrow we have a day off. We’re hoping the weather is fine so we can go out somewhere. If (as predictably) it isn’t fine, we’ll go to a mall and purchase a large soft toy for Destroyer, as she seems to enjoy lying on Cecile the octopus, but La Serpiente is very opposed to anyone taking her Cecile away from her. So that’s a goal to achieve.


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