A writer in training

Team 6 training

Garrya Elliptica in Brookmill Park, Deptford

10.02.2015
Day 302
Team 6 strength training with Erik Lee and Hyacinth, Joan and Rebecca: skater jumps; shoulder press, mix ladder, chest press/reverse press and rope siders
PM Kent AC session: warm-up on the track, then a jog over to Hillyfields, to swarm up the hills and down again

Picture this: a tracksuit-wearing couple in their fifties, surrounded by fitness equipment on the sparse February grass of a handsome south London park. He's black, she's white. He is training her. While he corrects her shoulder pressing technique (those dumbbells are really quite heavy) he holds forth about the range of movement in the human body. There are, he says, only limited planes along which the body needs to be trained: movement wise they can be summed up along the lines of arm rotations, leg lifts, front and back, lunges, squats, side steps and spine extensions. All drills and training moves are variants along these core truths, and before you teach them you have to practise them thousands of times. That, he says to the woman, would explain why you are so inarticulate when it comes to coaching the women who come to Buggy Runners. Until you've been coached sufficiently, you're not going to be comfortable passing it on.
Sometimes the woman pays scant attention  to what Erik says although she's always on the listen out for his funny little soundbites 'you're training for a purpose, not a circus,' is one of her favourites.  This piece of information makes her take stock, however, for it chimes with something else she knows, from way back when. Is it really true that there are only seven stories in the world? (the seminal book on this subject is 'The Seven Basic Plots' by Christopher Booker) . It gets her thinking, once again, about how to conjoin the two strands of her so-called career, or the career she fancies she has – running around and being fit, and trying to be a writer. Of course, Haruki Murakami cornered that market, and with that realisation, she sighs, then goes home to check her emails to see if anyone has popped up to offer her any 'content writing' work. She is not content writing such content.