This I have discovered when going back to doing home exercises including sit-ups and press-ups. Once there was a time when I could sicken others by getting down and doing 100 sit-ups without blinking (proper sit ups in the middle of the room, not cheating and hooking my legs under heavy furniture). Press ups were a little more effort but 50 was easily doable.
Now 5 is more like it.
Okay so carrying children does wreck the abdominal muscles but this is nothing short of ridiculous and just a tad depressing. It's going to take more than a quick tune up to fix this mess.
Dedication, commitment, hard work. I may as well add blue sky thinking, drive to succeed and versatility to that cliché of middle management sales rep linguistics, but the truth is I won't get back to where I was without some serious effort.
For the next two weeks I propose to keep dieting and doing basic strength work in the living room. Nothing exotic, the exercise ball and resistance work to reverse some of the atrophy. (A side note on exercise balls - never go economy, "anti-burst" is a figment of the marketers imagination as my 70kg partner can testify. Nearly broken wrists and a lesson learned, professional grade are worth the extra few £)
After that I will, I hope, have clothes that fit and my 30 week novice to marathon plan will be put into action.
And back to that strange other world in my head:
Vaughan watched helplessly as the woman
was rapidly stunned by the Arena guards and dragged back out of
sight. He stood abruptly. “Our business is concluded, the outcome
good for us both.” the words were a traditional closing to a deal.
“I take my leave now.”
“You won't stay for the rest of the
matches?”
“Will any rival the Ensensa? I would
stay if I could but I have little time for pleasures when business
calls.”
The Deethza was surprised but he had
got a fair price for his goods and the odd alien knew the right
platitudes to not cause offence by leaving before the end, in fact
the crowd was noticeably thinning now the Ensensa had fought.
Vaughan could not leave fast enough,
blending in with the other aliens making their way out of the Arena
through the gloom of a long sloped tunnel and bursting into the
welcome light of the dusty street. He side-stepped back away from the
busy thoroughfare and into a narrow alley. Only there did he let
himself lean against a wall and let out a heavy breath.
“Is everything alright, sir?” The
voice at Vaughan's ear was genuinely concerned.
Vaughan turned to face the man who like
him was hidden under a cloak and breathing mask. “We've got an
829.”
829 was the standing order for all
serving personnel to rescue any human slave discovered with extreme
prejudice. No matter what they did to facilitate the rescue no
soldier would ever be prosecuted by their own people and they would
always be protected from prosecution by any other race who felt
wronged by their actions. The order had been responsible for blood
baths in the past but it kept humans safe from the roving slave
dealers when it was more trouble and danger than a slave was worth to
take them as prize. Finding a human slave was therefore very rare and
something Vaughan and his crew had not encountered in nearly two
years travelling from one illicit arms deal to the next.
“Here? I didn't think anyone here
even knows what a human looks like.”
“They don't know they've got a human,
or if they do they're not advertising it. I hope you're up for a
challenge.”
“You know me.”
“Good.” Vaughan did in deed know
the Sergeant at his side, he was a special forces veteran who never
shied away from a fight and neither did his small team of expert
soldiers. Vaughan's little band of protectors and helpers, they posed
as the crew of the small merchant ship at the Intelligence Officer's
command and were never phased by anything. “Because this 829 is a
pit fighter.”
There was a look from the Sergeant but
he knew better than to say anything in the open. They were going to
have to break into the Arena, possibly the most secure building on
the planet, to rescue the enslaved human. All slaves were routinely
kept secure but those who fought in the pit kept doubly so, they were
the ones trained to fight making them dangerous to their owners but
they were also expensive commodities making them a target for theft.
They were breaking into a maximum security prison and bank rolled
into one.
In her gloomy cell, the Ensensa lay on
the bed and concentrated on breathing. She had several ribs broken
and one arm shattered as well as countless slices and bruises all
over her body, some from the last fight, some still unhealed from
fights before. The Arena's medic had patched her worse wounds while
she was still unconscious but her owner forbade the giving of
painkillers of any kind believing they promoted weakness.
It would not be long now
until her final fight, she had too many injuries to make a fast
recovery and no fighter was given long between fights. If they were
out of the fighting for too long the crowds lost interest, the owners
lost money. Besides, it was well known that the death fight was the
most profitable one when staged properly, even a crippled fighter
could promote large bets if they were a past winner. She tried not to
think about it, she tried not to think of much at all any more and
was so good at it she could barely remember a time when her life was
not all kill or be killed. Surely there was a better way of living
than being a macabre entertainment for amoral crowds but what it was
she did not know only to be sure it somehow involved less pain.
She was thirsty, she needed
water, but the drinking bowl was across the room and going to it
would only provoke a landslide of agony. After some sleep, she would
try for water after getting some sleep.
Time passed. Not quite
asleep but not awake she lay on the sterile slab that was her bed
until it dawned on her that the light was wrong. Her room was dim as
it always was but the corridor was also dark, lit only by the sparse
emergency lights. Had the power gone off? If it had would the doors
still be locked?
She tried to get off the bed
but landed in a painful heap on the ground and was still trying to
stand up when her door opened. She caught sight of a shadowy figure
stepping in and automatically raised for a lunge.
Vaughan caught the woman
easily. “It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you. I'm getting you
out of here.”
She looked up with
incomprehension. She heard the words but did not understand them. It
took a while for her to realise the soft words were in a language she
had not heard uttered in a long time, the words of her native tongue.
“Come on, let's get you
somewhere safe.” Vaughan propped the woman up, holding her close
and dragging her out of the pitiful cell.
From inside other cells came
the cries of many slaves, some calling insults, some threats and some
pleading for their freedom. However much Vaughan would have liked to
set them all free he knew he could not for many reasons. The chief of
those was the lack of time, they only had a few minutes to get clear
of the place before the back up generator came on line and all the
defences were reactivated. The roaming guards would not return,
Vaughan's men had made sure of that, but there were other ways the
slaves were prevented from escaping, nasty ways.
They had only minutes and
too many of those had been wasted finding the right cell, they had to
get out but the nearest exit was on the next floor.
The woman struggled up the
sloped corridor, she had little strength, relying heavily on Vaughan
to keep her moving.
He could see the door with
Sergeant Grantham waiting silently at it barely fifty yards away,
they were almost out.
The main lights abruptly
flicked back on.
Moments later the woman let
out a guttural noise and collapsed to the floor, her one good arm
clawing at the metal collar around her neck. The secondary defence
had just come back on, any slave out of their cell without their
owner's permission would suffer the agony that was the pain-giver
band. Remotely activated, a pain-giver sent a wave of energy directly
into the nervous system and set individually for each slave at the
right frequency to cause a pain so great it was virtually paralysing.
Vaughan swore, doing his
best to drag her back up from the floor with little success. “Come
on, we're nearly there. We're nearly outside. Stay with me.”
Through the pain she heard
little. She knew her rescuer was speaking but she could not
understand what he said. Blackness was creeping in now, after the
injuries already suffered the pain-giver was just too much.
FraidyKat runs - away from jelly
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