I do often wonder what things would be like if I didn’t do quite so much training each week. It’s takes up quite a lot of time, usually about 15 hours a week. I’m not training seriously at the moment but trying to fit in several swim, kayak, bike and run sessions a week, along with some weights, plyometrics and some stretching takes time.\u00a0Time that could be spent doing other things. When I was training a little more seriously the first thing to suffer (other than Anna and Morgan of course) was the garden. I just\u00a0didn’t have the time to tend to it that I used to have. Over the years\u00a0I’ve tried to make it fairly low maintenance so that it can look after itself. Things still need doing out there though and at least once a year in the Spring it needs a good clean-up.<\/p>\n
I’ve had a sore back the last couple of days so rather than do the planned training on Thursday I decided to ‘take it easy’ and have a rest day. I’m not sure how I hurt my back, I think it was whilst getting tossed around in the surf the other day. I was hoping that a rest day would allow my back to ease up ready for a MTB race at the weekend. That meant no run and plyometrics session before breakfast, no surf ski session in the morning and no turbo trainer session in the evening. Instead I’d relax and let my back recover.<\/p>\n
It didn’t quite work out like that though as I just had too much time on my hands. Morgan had a friend over for the day so I walked over to the beach<\/a>\u00a0in the sunshine with them and then decided to put the trampoline up for them to play on. This meant lifting heavy planks of wood, man-handling the netting and bending over to screw the retaining screws in place. My back was sore but I\u00a0was able to do it.<\/p>\n I then ended up in the garden with secateurs in my hands. Next thing I know is that\u00a0I’ve spent the entire day bending, lifting, hacking, sawing, cutting, weeding, carrying and burning in a major garden clearance effort. The lawn has had its first mow of the season, the phormium has had a major trim. All of the dead-wood from last year has been hacked down, moved and burned. The beds have been weeded (most of them). The water feature has been resurrected. Fruit bushes have been pruned, the pampas grass has been hacked back to nothing and everything has had a damn good tidy up. Not quite the rest and relaxation that my back needed but something that was sorely needed in the garden.<\/p>\n\n\t\tGarden Clearance<\/h2>\n