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I picked a great time to start a health kick… I’m in the UK and it’s been hotter than Satan’s arsecrack for months now. We’re officially in ‘drought’ and have the dreaded hosepipe ban in full force.

I’ve also been away house-sitting for just over a fortnight and honestly found it really challenging being ‘home’ alone in someone else’s immaculate, stylish home, in charge of my own food/budget. For context I live with my best friend and I tend to do all the cooking as even my lacklustre talent in the kitchen is more noticeable than his. I hate cooking and always have; for me it’s just a means to an end.

I also have an undiagnosed eating disorder (compulsive/binge variety) that has roots in my childhood where we were frequently hungry and poor; one of my earliest memories is sitting on the front room floor with our backs against the wall under the window so when the bailiffs looked in, the couldn’t see us. Every mealtime was a race to finish before my brothers in the rare event there was a sniff of seconds available. I try not to have crisps or biscuits in the house because I can’t rest if I know they are there – a legacy of discovering my brothers had eaten the last bag/pack and put the empty wrapper back in the cupboard.

While I was away I resisted the siren song of the takeaway, but otherwise ate crap the whole fortnight. It was too hot to go out and do anything so I vegged and ate stuff and felt terribly inadequate. As a result I’m back up to 98kg which is disappointing after managing to get down to 90kg last year (my target is 85kg). I am still having physio/PT once a week and now I’m back home I’m looking forward to getting back to the gym.

Anyway, that’s where I am at the moment. I’m dealing with a lot of hormonal issues as well (yay womanhood) so that’s not helping but I’m determined to reel in that distance target!

The grand adventure has started and currently I’m halfway between Bag End and the Southfarthing; I’m 22.4 miles behind my optimistic goal but confident I can make it up. I joined my local gym yesterday and had my induction (I haven’t been in a gym since before my accident) and had a brief play on a couple of bits of equipment.

I see a physio/PT every Monday morning who mostly has me doing work on a pilates reformer. If you’ve not come across this particular torture machine equipment before it’s a horizontal sliding carriage with spring-controlled variable intensity and straps that can be used for arm-pulldowns or if you’re really lucky, what I like to call the ‘Gynae Position’; feet in the loops and legs akimbo. It’s definitely not the most graceful of machines, getting off it is a clumsy sideways roll not unlike Greenpeace rolling a stranded whale back into the water.

Absolutely not me but you get the idea: https://www.thepilateslab.com.au

One of the major issues I had post accident is that my left knee is subject to recurrent tibial head subluxation; basically the top of one of my shin bones likes to slide out of position and ohmygod it’s painful. I’m no stranger to pain but bloody hell. I ended up at A&E the first time it happened although typically, the paramedics fixed the issue while they were wrangling my leg into a splint. Side note: do people *really* give birth with gas and air? It’s rubbish!

I plan to keep up this regular strength/flexibility work on Mondays and then on Weds/Fri at a minimum I want to use the recumbent exercise bikes and maybe the static machines like the leg press. I put 5 miles in when I had my induction and felt pretty good (just on a 5/10 free cycling setting) although they only have three of those style bikes so might have to be flexible. I can do the crosstrainer too but that’s knackering as my balance isn’t great (I’m not symmetrical any more).

In the virtual Shire my hobbit burglar is level 19 and has done more or everything in the zone, I still need to do the godawful pie delivery quests but I have done all the Quick Post deliveries and all the deeds available except Enmity of the Wolves which I’m still working on. Now I’m biking as well as walking I expect I’ll open up Bree and the surrounds fairly shortly; the Fellowship used horses and boats after all, so I don’t feel like it’s cheating to count the exercise bike.

Right, that’s enough from me, I’ll check in with you next week.

That’s elvish for ‘beginning’ apparently, so it seems apt to start a Lord of the Rings themed fitness/gaming blog with that word. A little background to why I’m writing this – well, firstly, I’m too old for tiktokking and I’ve definitely got a face for radio so a blog it is (how retro).

I had a near-fatal accident a decade ago and it’s been a pretty rough journey since to be honest. I’ve adapted to being an amputee OK but I am in constant phantom pain that’s exacerbated by, well, everything – but especially physical activity. As a result I’ve found myself becoming a bit of a recluse and totally sedentary. My hobbies pre-accident were all active and required a full set of limbs, and while I’ve found things to occupy my free time with since they are all of a necessity pretty low impact, physically speaking.

It’s difficult to motivate myself to exercise when it guarantees a day of increased phantom pain. Rationally and intellectually I know I should just suck it up and accept the extra pain but that’s easy to type and harder to action. I don’t want this blog to be about my injuries but I have ben prompted to at least try and get more active by finally getting on the waiting list for a surgery that might help my pain.

I have no idea when said surgery will be because the NHS is on its knees and it’s a specialist neurosurgery department a 4 hour drive away but I need to be physically fit because it’s a major spinal surgery that often causes weakness on the affected side. I figure the fitter I am the easier the rehab will be.

To that end I’ve signed up for an online fitness challenge based on the Lord of the Rings – one doesn’t simply walk into Mordor but one can march there, apparently. To make it a bit more fun I’ve also made a hobbit burglar in Lord of the Rings Online, the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG) with the intention of following in the virtual footsteps of the Fellowship with the caveat that I can’t progress further in the game than I have in the Conqueror app – so I can’t leave the Shire in game til I’ve racked up enough miles to leave it on foot.

I am only going to count ‘exercise miles’, i.e. not counting any distance accrued doing day to day things, not that I do many steps on an average day. Between the walking pad (a treadmill for indoor use that’s just for walking not running on) and joining the local gym to get access to recumbent exercise bikes I think I should be able to make decent progress, if I can get the momentum to push through the pain consistently.

I’ve already begun my journey to Mordor, you can see in these pics what the Conqueror app looks like – and I think I might have been a little over-optimistic on the pacing but let’s see if I can claw it back in the coming weeks.

My hobbit is currently level 18 and finishing up everything in the Shire waiting for me to catch up and head out to Bree. I do have several alts (I used to play LotRO a long time ago) so I have been noodling around on my High Elf Captain and River Hobbit Minstrel in the meantime.

Right, this is long enough already so I’ll leave it there – see you in the Shire!