Found my way to 500 sit ups today. Found myself in bed and it was raining... forgot the code to get into the house, (from my sleepout) walked around in the rain for a while until I realised the digit I'd swapped for another one.. finally found my way to the toilet, and then back to bed. Was feeling a bit cold after that adventure. Fought the desire to go back to sleep. Started doing sit ups to shift to a warmer place. The first hundred, (cause I'd already decided to aim for five) the mind started to complain..mostly about boredom more than anything. A couple of weeks ago I'd never done more than 100 at a time, (and the last time I did that was probably before you were born). But I used to do a hundred most days (when I was 15!) .....So I started with 25, then a few days later had a go at 50. It's not so hard, when you can do 50, to think you could do 100. The jump from 100 to 200 was going into new territory... but it wasn't soo new. It wasn't as hard as tramping for 12 hrs, or running a long distance race - or bringing up a kid. I could still feel the blood flowing in my belly the next morning - that was new, & I still felt warm the next day, which was cool.
But I didn't expect that mind would kick in during the first hundred, with complaints about boredom. Not - boredom I was feeling right then, but potential boredom that I MIGHT feel later on, when I got closer to 300 or 400. It wasn't "I'm not sure if I can do this??" and a slight fear of overheating and those stories about death by internal combustion... It was - "I could be catching a bus in the rain right now and you're making me hang around and do this" ?? NOTHING btw is more boring than catching a bus. Except for waiting for a bus that doesn't come, like I did last night when I tried to catch the last bus home to Waikowhai - with about 15 other people. (I rang the bus company this morning to find out what happened - no one knew - perhaps it was abducted by ALIENS???). Anyway that was the first 100 - a barrage of complaints about ridiculous things, predominately fear of boredom. (obviously my no 1 fear). Strangely the opposite was true. Somehow during the next 100 a flood of creativity was unleashed. I practically wrote a book in my head. I wish it was still there now??? By 200 something unexpected happened. To make it relatively easy for myself, I'd been doing sets of 25 and having rests in between each set. But when I got to 225, (after drifting off a little at 217 into a discourse in my head on - oooh I can nearly remember that one??) I didn't want to have my break, I just wanted to keep going, so I did, then just a 10sec break at 250 instead of 2 mins, then it was the downhill straight.
It was then that I kinda knew I'd get to the end of this, without too much trouble. When you get to 300, you realise just how much you use other muscles to do sit ups, It wasn't my stomach as much as my upper thighs, and even upper arms that were struggling. The rest was just about plodding along until it was finished, while enjoying the rich vein of creativity that was flowing through my head. Of course during the last set of 25, had to have 3 rests... Then - the complaints started again - so next week...we're going to do 1000 - that's going to take a reeaallly long time....
I'm trying to turn my life around, in big and little ways. I've never done 1000 sit ups in one day. But I know I can do it, probably more easily that most people. I'm not saying that to show off, I've just never allowed myself to match my achievements to my potential. I'm going to do it because it's just one way of saying to myself that that's going to change. Sometimes, the top of a mountain can be a lonely place. There aren't a lot of people to share the view with up there. (There are probably a lot more people at the pub in the village down at the bottom). We all have potentials that set us apart from other people. They're not always potentials that can or should be measured in dollars and cents either... we are all unique - and special. I just want to be me. I want to be who I truly am, not someone else's version of who I should be. I've held myself back a lot because I didn't want to stand out. But I don't want to be the spokesperson anymore for holding back ... from the fun that life can be.
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