Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

July 2014 -- injury, followed by a long period of not training very seriously

Two years ago I went to Vietnam. As is the trend, I had some clothes made. One bespoke suit and six business shirts made to measure, plus a pair of shoes. There were a couple of fittings where the tailors fussed over me and made sure everything was brought in and let out in all the right places to make them snug.

One year ago I joined the gym and started training.

Last week my shirt didn't fit. They'd always been tight, made as they were to my exact measurements and, I think, not pre-shrunk. But last Monday it was obvious. Uncomfortable. And not in the immediately confidence-building "hey, my pecs are too big for my shirt" way. And not in the immediately soul-destroying "my gut is busting my buttons" way either. That middle third, the solar plexus, where you normally start showing ripples of a developing six-pack. That's where I bulge.

My new bulge, courtesy of Wikipedia

All kinds of sore

Image courtesy of and (c) AfroGeeks

In the past 5 days I have:

• done weights training twice
• been for a run (~4km) twice
• attended two parkour classes (my first two)

It doesn't seem like much when I list it like that. Nonetheless. I am sore.

But I feel fantastic. I feel strong, reasonably fit, and like I have taken a solid couple of steps down this road to Midoriyama. Last night at parkour I achieved something I thought would take me a few months to work up to. Basically two horizontal bars about 2m apart, and I wanted to swing from one to the other. Similar setup to the Jumping Bars:

Image courtesy of and (c) Sasukepedia