Interim – Rugged

June 2024

The alarm goes off at 5.08am. It’s pitch black. It hasn’t been light at this time in a long while. The sun won’t rise until 7.23am. 

I uncurl an arm from beneath the depths of the doona and reach up into the cold air to flick on the bedside lamp. Once the light is on, I can see my breath in the air. 

I can feel my body tell me that I am not a morning person and that this is a stupidly insane time to be waking in winter. I’m warm and comfy – ensconced under a sheet, two fleece blankets, my sleeping bag and a midweight wool doona. The indoor thermometer says 3.3 degrees. My old, crappy unit has no ceiling or wall insulation – so it’s just really a glorified tent. There is no insulation under the floorboards and no concrete slab either. It’s minus 1.3 degrees outside and, therefore, -1.3 degrees under those floorboards as well.

There are so many reasons to stay in bed!!

But there are so many reasons not to stay in bed, too. I’m five months into this routine and I know not to think about it. Don’t give yourself any chance to talk yourself out of it. Just get up.

When the alarm goes off, just reach up, turn on the light, turn off the alarm and immediately get up and gingerly tip-toe across the cold floorboards to the even colder tiles of the kitchen (I sleep in the living room – my bed is both bed and couch). I take a jug of cold water from the fridge and pour it into the same green cup I use every day. 

(13 months into the latest foray into domesticity and I still have not increased my kitchen items – one coffee mug, one green 12-ounce cup, 2 plates, 2 bowls, 2 loaf tins, 1 soup pot, 1 saucepan, 3 mixing bowls of various sizes, a strainer – to rinse legumes, assorted knives and stirring/serving implements, a couple forks, knives and spoons, one stick blender (for soup) and one blender/food processor; 1 induction cooktop burner.  Do you really need any more than this?)

Into my green cup at about 5.11am goes 8 ounces of water (250 ml) and 2 scoops of pea protein powder. I stir vigorously. Then I down it like a shot – gulping down the fuel. Then I eat half a banana. 

I really, really hate ingesting anything before about 9 or 10am. My body clock says 8.30am is a good time to rise and about 10am is a good time to eat. But this is fuel, and after 5 months of this routine, I have come to understand that I train much better with protein and carbs in my system than training fasted. Then, when I come home, I immediately down another glass of protein powder and the other half of the banana.

But now, at 5.19 am, I tiptoe across the cold kitchen tiles, then across the cold, wooden floorboards again to the cold tiles in the bathroom. I brush my teeth, I run a comb through my hair. I put on my tights and t-shirt and then hurry to find some socks and my puffer jacket. 

I let that protein powder and banana settle. My body still does not like to digest protein as I do not produce enough stomach acid – so it’s been a few months of battling to find the right dosage of Betaine HCL to go with the morning protein drink (too little and I’ll feel like vomiting with exertion; too much and I get reflux). In the meantime, I check my emails. Nothing urgent – no overnight news that something has happened to my parents.

Then, 10 minutes later, at about 5.39am, we are crunching through the frosty oak leaves collected in the gutter under a clear sky dotted with stars. We’ve had such a dry autumn and winter that we’ve not yet had many foggy mornings. It is crisp and cold out here for a sunburnt country.  But nights below zero tend to turn into gorgeous days in the mid-teens at this time of year. 

I crunch at pace down the gravel pedestrian laneway between homes and 4-block units. A lone dog lets out a half-hearted bark as I pass by his fence. His barking is more vigorous when it is warmer and light. 

I hit the stairs that take us up to the pedestrian walkway over the freeway. I take the stairs two at a time. I watch the traffic flying by underneath at 110 kph. Poor souls – what time did they have to get up, and did they have to scrape the frost off the windscreen before they got in those vehicles?

I run down the steps on the other side of the freeway that lead to the main street. I take stock of my body and what niggles or pains are present. Then I’m walking fast down the main street underneath the verandahs – looking into shop windows at the latest fashions and into cafes whose outdoor furniture is piled up next to the windows inside waiting to be set up outside a bit later. 

I pass the same young, fit woman out running with her labrador most mornings. There are another couple of very thin women that are always walking briskly on the other side of the street on Mondays and Wednesdays, but never Tuesdays and Thursdays. And sometimes there’s a slightly dodgy guy or two rambling about, their heads not in the same reality as most of the rest of us. However, the cold weather has curtailed their presence a bit. 

It’s 5.55am and I turn the final corner – down past the pedestrian lights on Kiewa Street where the automated sprinklers are always on watering the little bushes in the landscaping. And then I’m there. At the gym. Ready to go.  

It’s become a routine. Not necessarily a fun one, but definitely a necessary one. When I was killing myself at work and away for many weeknights in a row back in Feb, March and April, I still managed to get here twice a week for strength training and once or twice for HIIT, depending on my work schedule.

After the workshops finished in May, I upped the training and now do three days of strength training and two days of HIIT. I go to a gym that is all women, most in their late 40s to 60s, and that has 12-week blocks of progressive strength training in very small group training sessions. 

I’ve learned proper technique and have gotten sooooo much stronger. I could only leg press 40 kgs when I started. I can do 115 kgs now. I could only stiff leg deadlift about 10kgs (and I had to strap my wrists) in the beginning. Now I can do 55 kgs with no wrist straps. And I have mastered the technique of the Bulgarian split-squat – now I’m just seeing how much weight I can add and still get deep reps with good form.  My ex-frozen shoulder is my major weakness (my instructor and I call it Ol’ Leftie) – but I’m getting better and can ‘bench press’ two 9 kg dumbells for a couple sets of 10 reps. Ol’ Leftie can finally shoulder press 5 kgs… that one’s been a journey! I have back and shoulder muscles now – I’ve never had those before in my life!

But what’s the point? What is my ‘why’?  Why am I dedicating so much gym time?

• First and foremost, because I want to get stronger so I can do even harder 4WD tracks in the high country on my next ride. I really struggled to get the bike up and out of some of the river crossings last time, and I want to do harder, steeper stuff next time, so I need to be stronger. 
• I am getting closer to 50 years of age – I’m losing muscle mass like everyone does as they age, so I need to preserve and build where I can. The DEXA scan I did in March was terrible! Low lean muscle mass, low bone density…. I need to turn that around!
• I have fears that if I lose more muscle mass, at some point, I won’t be able to fix my own punctures. And you can’t really call yourself a cyclist if you can’t fix your own punctures! More strength is the key to staying independent and riding solo!
• And because I can. After all that sickness, I am still grateful to wake up each morning and not feel super-duper scuzzy. I revel that my body can do this! I do not take it for granted that I can train 5 days a week, build muscle and actually recover. It’s a long way from absolutely scraping myself out of bed each day… and I am making the most of it!

So that has been my daily morning routine in 2024, followed by work each day. 

My contract has now finished and I’m enjoying the freedom that comes with that.  We’ve had really gorgeous weather since the beginning of May.  COLD starts but so many sunny days with highs in the mid-teens. I don’t think we’ve had a winter this nice since 2006!

4 July 2024

For the fourth of July we have superb weather – no clouds, no wind and a high of 17C. So the guys and I take advantage of that after I get back from the gym…..

We decide to go for a walk off one of the roads I’ve ridden a zillion times since 2004.

We are on Dhudhuroa country, and so I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which we walk today. I respect the deep and continuing connection that Traditional Owners have to these lands and waters, and I recognise their ongoing role in caring for Country.

I’ve known about this rock art shelter for about a decade, but the timing has never been right to look for it previously. It’s something you need to do in winter because there is no trail to it. I personally don’t like to bash through the bush off-trail in snake season. Plus this spot is hot and exposed in summer, and winter means no flies clustering around your face. So today is finally the day.

We drive up around 10am, leave the car near the road, and then take off through the dry, scrubby bush. I follow kangaroo and deer trails where I can, meandering up and up, always keeping the curving ridge line to my right and staying on the east side of it. I crunch over logs, nearly impale various body parts with low branches and sink into mossy, muddy bits where water has seeped down below rock outcrops. 

Up and up past clusters of big boulders and an occasional burnt out log. I duck and dive and weave through the bush. I’m not exactly sure where I’m going. I have studied the topo maps and google satellite view in depth, but because there is no trail and only a vague description of where the rock overhang is located, I’m really just going by how the topography ‘feels’. Thankfully, I have a very good sense of direction, and decades of experience in ‘wayfinding’, so I’m confident that we’ll get there even without a map.

The branches scrape my arms, and sometimes I am standing on fallen bushes that bounce when you step on them. Each step is calculated and there is always something that wants to trap a trekking pole or foot. We step up on boulders, we stop on occasion to gauge where we are and where we think we need to go. We clamber up steep bits and skinny through sections of thick brush, pushing forward with the hiking poles.

I didn’t know how long it would take to find the site, but just on 45 minutes of scrambling, I see a small rock cairn above a cliff to the left. Hmmm… I thought it would take longer to get here, but following kangaroo trails probably sped things up.

I walk over to the cliff edge to see if it looks like this could be it. Perhaps. Its outlook and relation to the property below and the mountain above looks right based on my studies of the satellite images.

So I very slowly and carefully make my way down the very steep slope that angles off the cliff. I use my poles to fight against gravity and pick my feet up and over bushes and branches. I head north and then back south and then… yes, this is it. There it is. It is every bit of amazing as I imagined it would be.

I stop. I pay my respects to the Dhudhuroa. The pictographs here and throughout North East VIC are thought to be around 2500-3000 years old. I realise that this is a sacred site and I do not want to be disrespectful. I tread carefully and I think about how there are 500 generations of First Nations history on this land upon which I walk. As a geology nerd, I can think in huge timescales. But huge timescales of rock history seem easier for me to comprehend than huge timescales of human history. I cannot really comprehend 500 generations of people. I do know it took less than four generations to completely dispossess the Dhudhuroa of their Country.

So I think about that for a while. I sit in the shelter with its commanding view (which you don’t get to see as I don’t want to give away the location), and just think. I breathe a variation of square breathing. I watch the raptors soaring thermals below. I replay the Dreamtime story of how the features in the land were formed.

And I look at the pictographs. They are quite faded, but I know what to look for, so that makes it easier. There are emu prints, what looks like an arrow (but represents a bird or bird tracks) and track with a cross. There are supposed to be around 9 images, but I really can only see six clearly.

I stay quiet and try to ‘feel’ the place and the people whom have been here before. I try to take in the immensity of the history and think about what this area would have looked like when the pictographs were painted. It is not often that you can visit a site that is respected and there is no rubbish or even footprints. I feel fortunate to be able to visit.

We then scramble our way back through the bush, dismayed by the number of deer prints we see as we clamber down. I follow the ridgeline further this time and enjoy the big clusters of boulders and outcrops that jut out or seem to tumble down the slope. We crunch and snap and clomp through the obstacles. I am so much stronger now that I have no trouble with weird angled feet and hiking poles lodged up and downslope. I feel good. Nothing is sore or hurts, even though we were contorted in just about every which way possible at times.

It has been a perfect day for this trip. I’m glad to finally get the chance to visit some of the evidence of the deep human history in the region after 10 years of thinking, “I really need to go see that site.”

We drive home. We’ve got three more days of fantastic weather before some rain. What can we do with these amazing days of high pressure (so high, it is breaking records!: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-07-04/australias-highest-air-pressure-recorded-weather/104055462)

The guys have at least one idea. More of this: