On the 22 March of this year (which happened to be Mothers Day and also marked the start of lockdown) I started a year long press up challenge. Each day that has passed since I have added one press up on a cumulative basis, so that today (now past half way) I did 188 press ups and tomorrow will do 189, and so on until I reach the 365th day. It’s best not to dwell on the total amount this involves, but I am aware that it is something like 77,000 press ups over the whole year and the second half of this challenge involves roughly 51,000.
I am not alone (thankfully!) in undertaking this. I am in a team with three other members of our gym (Blitz) and we regularly check in with each other about how the madness of so many press ups a day is going!
Given the context of what was going on in the world, we wanted to dedicate these efforts to an NHS/Covid supporting charity, and a friend suggested CW+ (which specifically is the official charity of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, our local area) and in particular its COVID-19 Rapid Response Fund (launched in March 2020) which is a fund dedicated to supporting the CW staff (in all their hospitals) provide the best care to patients throughout the Covid outbreak by providing equipment, technology and crucial support to their frontline workers. Through donations to this fund, CW+ have been able to provide sleep pods, well being hubs and care packages for NHS staff isolated from home, amongst many of their initiatives which you can read about on their website and instagram page.
To date as team we have raised over £2,000 for the charity and hope that this continues as the second half of the year progresses (and I have no doubt that they are still very much in need of financial support. We are, it seems, far from out of the woods yet.) If you would like to support, our Just Giving page is here, and we would be grateful if you would also share it with anyone you think might like to support the charity. (Massive thank you to those who have already donated!)
This challenge has also taken me on a bit of a personal journey, physically, mentally, possibly even (on difficult days!) spiritually. It has not been easy particularly now but it isn’t supposed to be, and having tactical ways of trying to deal with this (mostly involving rising early!) has helped me, and sometimes on “flat” days, the routine of just getting up and getting them done has lifted my spirits, as has doing them on random runs in the Lake District and in Cornwall, sometimes in pouring rain, sometimes next to sheep (now very often now next to a crazy kitten!).
Also, while recording them and (more to the point!) watching them on instagram stories may make for painful viewing, it has given me a strange motivation, not only to do keep doing them, but to do them well (trying my best to adhere to Crossfit RX standard - with the gym coaches to keep me in check!). I have found strength (literally) in being accountable - to myself, the other team members, the charity, the very kind people who have supported it so far, the very lovely people on instagram who from time to time message me with words of encouragement (this has been so helpful, thank you), and to our kids who (I hope) may appreciate the value of commitment.
Anyway, that’s it in a nutshell! The superstitious part of me has been reluctant to write this for fear of injury so I will end this with a big TOUCH WOOD that I don’t get injured and an even bigger THANK YOU for reading/supporting/sharing. See you on day 365!!
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My home town is a very long way from where I live. In fact, it’s hard to imagine living much further away.
I live in leafy, pretty Twickenham, home of English rugby, riverside walks, one very lovely street (Vape shop aside), many charity shops and good transport links to London (this is not an ad for Twickenham!). My hometown is the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia - a place you definitely appreciate more as a visitor (in my opinion) with beautiful beaches, very warm winters (to me now, see Beast from the East), one very good shopping centre, and excellent smashed avo on toast. “That looks like a nice place to live” I commented on the setting of my kids current favourite TV show “H2O”.....“It’s the Gold Coast mummy” they said, rolling their eyes….(I went to Surfers Paradise State School, that says it all really).
A month ago, I found myself unexpectedly back there. When I say unexpectedly, I mean I went to work in London on an ordinary Thursday before an uneventful half term (I had a spring in my step that day as I had a fun night out to look forward to), and the next morning I had packed within an hour for the whole family, was in a taxi to Heathrow by 8am and on a midday flight to Australia. Twenty-five fairly horrifying hours later, we were at the Gold Coast. There is only one reason that anyone finds their plans changing so quickly and dramatically, and it is never a good one. My lovely Dad, who had turned 82 only 3 days before, and who had sounded so happy and full of life when we spoke to him on his birthday, had suffered a major stroke. By 2am on Friday morning, I knew that he would not make it, and he passed away while I was frantically packing.
My childhood homes were always full of art and colour, and even the gardens were works of art. My Dad, although a lawyer by profession, was an incredible artist from an early age. He famously drew pictures all over his law exams part way through his degree and left to pursue his dream of being an artist, before succumbing to expectation and parental pressure and returning to finish his degree. But despite a very successful professional career, he was also an artist his whole life. As children my three brothers and I would sit at his feet as he carved amazing faces into apples, and sat in his art studio with him drawing nude life models. As a teenager I was allowed to paint my entire bedroom with wall to wall murals including the ceiling, despite totally destroying the carpet. You could barely see the walls in our house for all the drawings, tile cuts and paintings he did and collected. One of my favourites comes with the best story - he was once at a local fair and spotted a large canvas on which a year group of tiny school children had painted their self portraits. He loved it so much, he asked if he could buy it, and later attended the school to give each child in the painting $1 in payment. It is now in a huge frame and has pride of place in my parent’s living room.
He was a very sentimental man. He used to drive my brothers and I to high school which was in the hinterland a little way away from our house. As we got close to school we used to round a bushy corner and just after you rounded the corner an old wooden sign nailed to a tree with the name of a large property over a big red arrow came into view - we’d compete with each other to be the first to shout out the name on the sign (“Jabiru!!!” we would scream). My graduation present on finishing high school was that very sign - he went to the property and asked for it, framed it and gave it to me. It’s on the wall in our house in Twickenham, and its red arrow now points to a large wooden aboriginal carving of Jabiru, another one of his presents to me.
Saying goodbye to such a Dad has not been easy. He was, and is, in so many respects, the gauge I measure other people by. I know in my heart that I married a good and kind man because I grew up with one. I know I love art and colour and have passed that on to my kids because of him. I became a lawyer largely because he instilled in me a strong sense of justice, but like him I am not wholly suited to it (an understatement), and am always looking for another way to satisfy myself creatively.
I want there to be a happy ending to this story, but it is currently too soon, and too raw. I am back in Twickenham, catching the train, going to work, doing school collections, putting one foot in front of the other (drinking a lot of wine), but feeling a bit dead inside. I have discovered that some people (often ones you don’t know that well) are incredibly kind, especially those with their own stories of loss to tell. Through them I have realised that really, I am one of the lucky ones. He died when I was 45, saw me through massive changes in my life, had my husband ask him (via telephone from Argentina!) for his permission to ask me to marry him, walked me down the aisle, adored our kids who adored him back, and taught them to draw and paint on our visits.
I can’t go home to him at the Gold Coast anymore. He won’t be watering plants in the garden or painting in his art studio. He won’t be calling me from his library, (though heartbreakingly I still have the voicemails on my phone including one a week before he died “I’m sitting in the library and I just wanted to hear your voice. No need to call me back”). But he will be in his paintings (some of which are hung on our walls in Twickenham), my kids art, my happy memories, the stories I have to tell, the choices I have made so far, and the choices I am yet to make (let them be good ones!)
Most of all though, I know he is in the love I have for my own little family, the love they give me in return, and the home we have made for ourselves. If there is to be a happy ending, for now let it be the realisation that I am not so far from home after all.
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Every now and then he would suggest again that I should try it. “You’ll meet new people” he’d say. But I didn’t want to meet new people. I was perfectly content exercising by myself in our tiny front room (with Shaun T) and even though my fitness had gone a bit downhill post turning 40 I was still moving wasn’t I? “Besides”, I’d say “I don’t have any active wear.” (This was true. I exercised in an old vest top and my underpants. I couldn’t possibly go to Crossfit.)
And then something changed. My beloved Dad passed away and we found ourselves very suddenly at the airport and very painfully back in Australia. After his funeral I flew back with the girls and the husband flew to the US for a week for work. I spent a pretty grim and bleak week half heartedly trying to work and be a mother but feeling empty, exhausted and soul destroyed. When the husband returned home he said he had booked me into a Crossfit class (actually it was a Sweat class which is like Crossfit without the barbells). I could no longer say I had no active wear as (very cunningly) he had bought me some in Australia (we had left so quickly we took practically nothing so on 5 occasions went to our local “Cotton On” shop for clothing supplies. They got to know us quite well).
So at 8am one Saturday in early June 2018 I found myself (in spite of all my protestations) at my local Crossfit gym feeling nervous, self conscious and more than a bit fragile. When the instructor (it was the lovely Holly) announced that it was to be “TEAMS OF 4”, I was filled with horror and stood near the door thinking that no one would really notice if I slipped out and went home. Then I turned and saw three friendly girls standing nearby who asked me if I wanted to be in their team. “Yes”I heard myself say.
“Yes,” I said when I came home.
I could talk a lot about how in many respects at that time, Crossfit saved me. It gave me an outlet for a lot of pent up emotion, it distracted me from my own grief and gave me the company of people when I didn’t think I needed it. But as time went on (and I slowly increased my membership from twice a week to 3 to 5 to unlimited), I realised that my Crossfit journey was no longer about healing. I really really love/d it.
What do I love? I love that slowly over time I have got stronger than I ever thought was possible. I love that at 47 I am also fitter than I have ever been (except possibly in my mid-teen karate days). I love that workouts that previously sounded like something only a super hero could do, I can actually complete (or do a version of!). I love that I have met people outside of work and the girls’ school who I bond with over a shared love of fitness and have conversations with about what weight we are going to use (often knowing the person well enough to know the answer). I love having something to focus on that doesn’t define me (as an age bracket, as a mother, as my job ) in any way other than what I am willing and capable of doing at that moment, and that my Crossfit friendships are similarly not defined. I love the random banter and hilarity that often comes with the 5:45am class (of which I am a very committed member, I told you it was funny!). I love that I have done two Crossfit Opens (the worldwide competition that in theory enables you to qualify for the Crossfit Games) and that a week before my 47th birthday I did a whole day inter-club Crossfit competition with a partner who was nearly half my age (not that it was ever discussed!) and that not only did I not totally embarrass myself on any of those occasions but in all three I did something I was never previously capable of (a strict handstand pushup, a 30kg snatch, a clean and jerk of 43kg!) and sometimes have never done since.
I am far from being a very capable Crossfitter in the way that many people at our gym are. I despair of ever doing double unders properly, could do rope climbs vaguely well one day and then suddenly couldn’t the next, and will probably never do anything with “muscle up” in the name. But somehow I have become someone who doesn’t get scared when the workout says “Teams of 4” (welcomes it even!) and who might be seen running out the door with others holding kettlebells.
And that’s what I know about Crossfit!! And one other thing. No one cares about how you look.
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The ability to ski in and ski out of where you are staying is worth its weight in gold. We didn’t have this the first year we went and carrying all the girls equipment a fair distance when they were very young was tough. In Avoriaz we could ski to and from our accommodation and while there was a small amount of carrying stuff it was minimal in comparison and made the whole experience so much better, especially at the end of the day when very tired. I would choose this (and ease of getting to ski room and out) over space/luxury etc/anything really. In Avoriaz we have stayed both times in a tiny apartment (no chalet!) in Saskia Falaise www.pierrevacances.comwhich also has the advantage of the ski hire shop being only a few metres away.