Bleep...bleep..bleep.
I hit pause. Exercise can wait for a moment.
I'll be fifty-four in two months' time, and in the past few years, I have done zero minutes of exercise. Zero. Walking to the biscuit tin and back doesn't count, apparently. I walk every day, at least 7000 - 10,000 steps, or so my smart watch tells me. It's not real exercise, though, nothing that makes me sweat, or get out of breath, or cause endorphins to rush through my body.
It's not all through laziness and apathy. Last year, I slipped a disc in my back, a herniated disc, as the doctor later called it. It was, without a doubt, the most pain i have ever been in. It hit me in the middle of the night as I tried to reach the toilet in our ensuite, a muscle spasm left me immobilised and gripping the door frame with white knuckles, unable to move forwards or backwards without searing pain shooting through my body. My wife had to help me to the toilet, twenty years ahead of when this should have happened.
The next morning, when I tried to leave the bedroom, it happened again, and unable to reach a wall, i fell to the floor. I lay there, my face pushed into the carpet pile for around twenty minutes, just breathing deeply to regulate the pain before calling out for help.
When I was slightly more mobile I got an appointment to see the doctor. He gave me a fact sheet on stretches and exercises I could do to improve. The sketched character on the fact sheet had a smiling but confused face. It reminded me of Thora Hird in the adverts for stairlifts you used to see at the back of Sunday supplements. Behind the eyes were saying, "How did it come to this?"
I said to the doctor I was thinking of going to see a chiropractor to help to mend my back. He laughed. "If chiropractor services worked, don't you think it would be offered on the NHS?"
I went anyway, and after a few sessions, it did feel better. My left shoulder blade, which had dropped by two inches due to the herniated disc, was now almost level again. My back, once twisted, was now straight again. I could finally walk without pain.
But I couldn't run, I couldn't exercise. The slightest jog would leave a strange sensation in my back, like it wasn't completely joined up, like a bolt was loose somewhere. And lifting anything heavy was out of the question.
To be honest, a sedentary life suited me. Exercise has always been a chore, even when I was younger. I used to run 5k once or twice a week, and the only thrill I got was from finishing, the act of running itself I found boring and difficult. I like moving around, I don't like to sit still for too long if there's something to do, but exercising, of my own free will? Nah, you're alright.
But having caught an image of myself on the playback of the ring doorbell, and seeing that I looked older and fatter than I had visualised myself, I knew something had to be done. Something had to change.
I can run small distances now, for a train at the station, after the dog when he runs off, without any negative effects, so I know I'm ready to do something again. Something only small to start with.
I found a chair exercising app for older people, with stretches to help my twiglet brittle back and signed up.
So after procrastinating and thinking of a million other jobs I should be doing instead, I sat on the highbacked dining room style chair and opened my the app. I was reading through the list of exercises when my six year old son took a photo of me on his tablet. In the photo, my face is smiling but confused, just like Thora Hird in that advert from years before.
I thought to myself, "How did it come to this?"
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