Blessed

What was the first thing you thought of when you read this title?

Something religious? Brian Blesséd? The way the word sounds?

I’d half considered calling this post “I Should Be So Lucky”, and I had some of the Minogue spirit of the pint-sized popster coursing through my veins as I pedalled up and out of Lewes, to Ringmer, Glyndebourne, Glynde and Beddingham, and then looping back athwart the A27 through the monkey business of Southerham, Cliffe and home.

Still in recuperation from plantar fasciitis – regular icing, golf-ball rolls and less regular calf-kneading with a massage stick – I’m very much out and about on the bike these late Spring early mornings. I did the same loop on Sunday, but today’s was a good minute faster (and a PB, though there’s not yet much to worst in Runkeeper’s memory of biking). Nothing to do with me and my energy levels, I’m sure, but rather the fact that I pumped up my tyres before I headed out.

As I rode out today, blessed (not Blesséd) is very much what I felt. Regular readers will know how much I adore communing with early-morning nature, particularly bird and mammal life. Today’s highlight was a partridge, very far from any kind of tree (pear or otherwise), skittering ahead of me on the road up to Glyndebourne, alternately sprinting, putting in a short flight, panting by the side of the road, and then repeating the sequence as my orange Lycra torso hoved into view anew. Today was a first day of shorts (almost June), and I came back more dew-covered than tingly.

After the partridge finally decided to put decent distance between it and me and sustained an improbably long flight, the magisterial sight of the giant wind turbine on the Glyndebourne estate rose from the mist. And then it was weeeeeee … the fastest stretch of the 16K loop, racing past Carmen’s tobacco factory, Macbeth’s castle, the fascinating home of Aida.

I may not be running, but the joys of the early morning – experienced at slower but also very much faster pace than running – make me feel very blessed indeed. To be alive. To be breathing in the coolth of the early morning. To be communing with nature (and talking to it as I go, all a bit care in the community). And to be burning off the excesses of a generally fairly sedentary life.

I’ve said it (here) before: I find it ironic that it took until my mid-40s for me to really get the purpose of exercise – mental well-being through physical exertion. If only they’d told me that at school, I might have been more sober from teens to mid-30s, less Mr Creosote for much of that time, and with fewer Black Dogs for companionship in the wee smalls (they’re strangers there now).

Blessed.