Eight weeks of exercise, and not an endorphin to be seen

Quite a lot of other people, though

A few weeks ago, I decided to start going for a walk directly after the school run. (Which, in this case, is technically the school walk, because, well, that’s how we do it. But anyway…)

I did this mostly because I know my brain, and I know that if my brain knows it’s going to be asked to make the body do exercise, the brain will point-black refuse. It has to be tricked into it. I have to wake up and tell myself that today I will not go for an hour-long walk. No, today I will simply walk the five minutes to school and back, and then I will sit on my butt at my computer, writing my little stories until it’s time to pick Max up again.

This thought makes the brain happy. It’s comforted by the knowledge that not much is going to be required of it. But then, inevitably, once I’m actually Out There in the elements, with my Big Coat on, and my earbuds at the ready, the brain becomes resigned to the idea of being Out There. “We may as well stay Out for a bit longer,” it tells itself, shrugging in resignation. In this way, I have successfully hoodwinked myself into a daily walking habit (Well, almost: my parents do the school run on Fridays, and AS IF I’m going to leave the comfort of my home when I don’t actually need to…) which has now lasted around two months, which I believe is roughly long enough for me to be able to call it a ‘habit’, although not nearly long enough for me to have started to enjoy it.

Unfortunately for me, though, it’s also exactly long enough for me to have identified a set of other Daily Walkers; people who, like me, are also forcing themselves to take a largely pointless walk along the same path I use, and who are choosing to do it at exactly the same time I am.

Now, if I was a different kind of person — a confident, extroverted person, who always knows exactly how to behave in every single situation — I’d be on first name terms with all of these people by now. My husband, for instance, would already have a group chat with them all. They’d be using it to organize the Walking Group Christmas Party 2024. He’d know everything about them and their lives, and would regularly tell me stories about how Jim’s sister-in-law’s nephew didn’t get that job he was after, and I’d have to nod and smile and pretend to know who the hell ‘Jim’ was.

Because I’m painfully awkward, though, I have to settle for just making this face every time I pass one of the Fellow Walkers, instead:

And then I have to do it again on the way back, because, as we all just walk along a particular stretch of footpath before turning and walking back again, we pass each other twice.

And, instead of being on first name terms with them all, I think of them purely as…

The Other Redhead

This woman has the same colour and length of hair as me, and looks roughly the same age as me. So she’s me, basically… but coming in the opposite direction. What if she actually IS me coming in the opposite direction, though? What if I’m in some kind of surreal, Sliding Doors type scenario, and The Other Redhead represents the life I would have lived if I’d made different choices? I mean, I hope to hell not, because imagine if no matter what you did in life it still resulted in you trudging along the same, dreary path every morning, and the only difference was that you were coming from the opposite direction? How depressing would that be? And how much do I wish I hadn’t started this particular chain of thought?

The Woman Who Has My Coat

It’s not actually MY coat, you understand; it’s just a coat that looks like my coat, which makes me feel like I should give her an extra awkward smile of acknowledgement, like, greetings, fellow green-coat-wearer. But that would obviously be weird, so I don’t.

The Man With the Spaniel

The spaniel is super-cute, but the man always looks vaguely harassed/annoyed, so lately we’ve mutually given up on our awkward smiles, and I don’t know quite how to feel about that. Like, I’m mostly relieved to be released from the obligation of it, but also, why no awkward smile, Man-with-the-Span? Y u no like me?

Speedy

Speedy is a speed-walker. I’m pretty sure he’s training for something, because he does that funny ‘speed walker’ walk (You know the one where they kind of waggle their hips and hold their arms at right-angles?) and is very, very serious about it.

The fascinating (well, to me, anyway…) thing about Speedy is that, when I first started seeing him, he would be dressed in kind of formal non-workout clothes, including a pair of leather dress shoes, which — and I’m no expert here — I wouldn’t have thought were the best thing for speed walking. But, over the weeks we’ve been passing each other, he gradually started to change his look, starting with exchanging his trousers for the most revealing leggings I’ve ever seen (but still with the dress shoes), and now he’s mostly in workout gear, but often worn with something on top that suggests he might have a Zoom meeting later, and he wants to be ready for it. Whatever he’s wearing, though, Speedy always has a fierce scowl on his face which makes him look absolutely furious, and low-key like he might punch you if you tried to interrupt him.

Needless to say, Speedy does not engage in the awkward smile exchange.

The Couple With the Jumpy Dog

I don’t see TCWTJD every day (I’m actually starting to think they might have changed their walking time, just to avoid me now. I will be overthinking this later, for sure…), but every time I do see them, our interactions are always extra-awkward because the dog always comes running at me and tries to jump up, while barking crazily, and then the couple have to apologize and pull him off me, while I grin like a maniac and and assure them it’s ABSOLUTELY FINE, REALLY, so that they like me, even though, to be totally honest, it’s not absolutely fine, because, as much as I like dogs, I don’t love having their muddy paws on my clothes every morning. You know?

So, like I say, I’ve been doing this walk for a couple of months now, without ever starting to enjoy it. I think it’s because I don’t ever seem to experience the famous ‘endorphin’ rush other people claim to get from exercise? And yes, I know walking probably isn’t vigorous enough to be endorphin-inducing, but I did go through a phase of running the route instead of walking it — I did this purely so I’d get it over with faster, obviously — and it didn’t happen then, either. And, I mean, I used to run a lot. Strange as it is to think of it now, I actually used to run 10Ks on the regular. And go to the gym. And do workout videos like Insanity, and… whatever the one after Insanity was called.

All of that, and I still didn’t ever get an endorphin rush. Like, what even IS an endorphin rush? Because, seriously, I have no idea. I mean, I do feel relieved when the workout is over, because it means I get to go and do something less boring, but… I’m not sure that’s what people are referring to, is it?

Nevertheless, I will persist, and will even try to persuade myself to start running instead of walking again, because, honestly, this year has been a bit of a wake-up call, fitness wise. When I went to the Eras Tour back in June, for instance, I danced (and, OK, screamed…) energetically along to the first couple of songs … and then I felt like I could’ve been doing with a bit of a sit down, really. In July, the hotel we stayed at had a kids’ club Max loved, and, at the end of every mini disco, they’d play a certain track which the parents would be encouraged to get up and dance to. “This’ll be no problem for me,” I thought smugly, as Max pulled me up onto the dance floor. “I’m a pretty good dancer, even though I say it myself. Watch me wow everyone with my moves.”

But, guys, I used to be a pretty good OK dancer. Now, though, I found I was just a kind of unfit dancer (My family all agreed that I was still the BEST at the dance, though, because it turned out the other mums¹ were even less fit than me, so, you know: I showed them…), which, for someone who has always hated exercise, and yet still somehow managed to remain fit, was a bit of a shock. I used to be able to do this stuff without even thinking about it. I used to be able to do most things (Exercise-wise, I mean. There’s obviously TONS of things I have never been able to do…) without thinking about them. Like, I couldn’t do the splits², say, or walk on my hands, but I could comfortably run, climb, lift things… you get the picture.

This year, though, for the first time ever, I’ve noticed an obvious decline in my fitness levels, and I’m really not into that, because, to be totally honest, I struggle enough with the aging process without THIS coming along to make me feel like the end is nigh. But here we are, people: just a few days ago, I was sitting on the floor with Max, and when I got up I found myself making a little, involuntary groaning noise, as if the simple act of standing up was a tremendous effort and now I’d need a bit of a lie down.

Harsh, but fair

“That’s it,” I thought. “I’m going to start running the walking route instead of just walking it. I will start tomorrow. Well, on Monday.”

So, let the record show that, starting on Monday, I’ll be running every morning (Mon- Thur) after the school run; me, Speedy, Other Redhead, The Woman Who Has My Coat, and Man-With-Span. I’ll start off slow, obviously, but I’m hoping to build up to being able to run the entire way there and back; which will not only be quicker, but will also hopefully be less awkward, because by the time the Other Walkers see me coming, I’ll already be gone. ‘Eat my dust, suckers,’ I will absolutely not say as I pass them, because, for reasons I’m not ready to confront, it’s important to me that the Other Walkers not hate me.

Anyway, the idea is that by putting this intention out there in my newsletter, I’ll definitely have to do it now, so I’ll either update you all next week, or just never mention this again. Speaking of next week, though, we’re just one week away from the publication of The Ghostwriter of Christmas Past, which has had the colour of its cover changed since I last told you about it:

You can pre-order it here.

Until next week,

1. Yes, it was always the mums that got up

2. I did once spend a few weeks attempting to learn to do the splits, but I’m sure I don’t even really need to tell you that, because if it had been a success I’d talk about it aaaallll the time, honestly…