The winter pelt

With competitive sport behind him, Rob Palmer has decided to take a kinder, gentler and more sustainable approach to exercise this season

The cold creeps up on you pretty darn fast, as does the realisation that your plan of retaining any summer fitness has holes all through it.

It’s a tough life fact to grapple with and many a middle-aged snapped knee ligament or Achilles tendon will lend support to the realisation that the days of competitive winter sport are over for me. I’ve seen two mates snap an Achilles playing over-40s basketball and another do his while playing mixed netball. What were you thinking, men?

In the past, glorious, youthful weekends would have me running to the edge of my endurance on a Saturday, training to do it all again two nights a week and still allowing for a few beers and somewhat sloppy diet along the way to a hopeful appointment with a grand final in September.

This year I’ve realised that the metaphorical snow didn’t melt in the same way I would have liked over summer and the winter pelt of a slightly rotund gut line is still in the picture… and here comes the cold. Again.

I think that this year, because the dream of full-contact sport is well and truly over, I am going to have to aim at hitting the brakes on a few behaviours that put me where I am on the scales of kilo climbing and also ignite the fuse on activity that may be a bit kinder to this not-sorecent model of man.

I do have a sloppy arthritic knee and may enjoy a couple more ales than Peter Perfect recommends but I am a long way from giving up on the mind and body I spent so long enjoying before now.

I do think that successful adjustments happen in small increments so this is the plan.

I’ll focus on the few activities that don’t punish my knee for starters: swimming, rowing and bike. I won’t go hell for leather and lose the desire in a week but will introduce mini sessions that sparsely populate each fortnight. I’ll target a few regular days where abstaining from a frosty ale won’t feel like a punishment and little by little, maybe even reduce food portion sizes so that I don’t spend half the day feeling like I’ve just eaten.

These are all goals of course and I am not kidding myself that the road to success won’t have a few swerves, curves and bumps, but it sure as houses beats the road I’m currently travelling. The days are shorter and the air cooler and one of the best ways I see to warm things up is to get moving. Hopefully the only holes in my rejigged fitness plan will be the ones reappearing in the tail of my belt. ■