As many of you already know, I am not particularly fond of the gym. Some people absolutely love the routine a gym provides and others, myself included find it a complete and utter drag.

I know that our resident fitness trainer Roy Cohen will probably shake his head when he reads this post and I apologize in advance Roy! Even though I’m not a fan of the gym, I don’t use this an excuse not exercise. In fact, it drives me to find other ways to keep active and fit.

Incidental exercise, for me is something I really enjoy to do. It’s all about being creative and finding new ways to include exercise in my busy life.
Lately I’ve taken to doing 10 or so push-ups an hour in my office. Initially, colleagues couldn’t help but stop at my office door and either laugh or more than often, offer coach like rants. Helpful? Not at all but perhaps in the future it may inspire one or two of them follow but I won’t hold my breath.

Today was a particularly long and frustrating day. My plan was to get home at a reasonable hour, put some dinner on, take the dog for a walk and get on the exercise bike for an hour. As my day progressed it became obvious that my plans were going out the window, fast. As each hour passed a nagging thought in my head was wondering how I was going to fit everything into my day.

I decided that I would just ride my bike later in the evening and I have to say that I wasn’t really looking forward to it by that stage.

When I got home, my partner was waiting at the door with dog in hand and told me to get ready, we were off to the beach to tackle Heartbreak Hill.

This news was both a blessing and a curse. Heartbreak Hill is a name we affectionately call a particularly steep sand dune at our local beach and it lives up to it’s name. Seriously, it hurts you.

The reward for reaching the top of Heartbreak Hill is a magnificent view of the coastline. Most times though I am so exhausted from the run up the hill that I barely notice the view. My focus is all about running back down and climbing back up again.

We found Heartbreak Hill by chance. It was a quiet Saturday when we took the dog for a walk along the beach. We went further than we normally do on this particular day and were confronted with this huge sand dune. At that moment, we looked at each other, said WOW! and challenged one another to run to the top. The dog, rather stunned was the last to take up the challenge as we bolted.

The point of this story – look at every thing around you and see if it is something you can incorporate into your fitness lifestyle. You don’t need to have access to a beach to find challenges. Our local park has some fantastic benches that I use almost every day to help workout my arms, back and upper body and a set of terrific steps that I run up and down for as long as I can handle and then usually a few more just to push myself.

You will be surprised just how quickly your fitness and energy levels increase.

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