Fill that Bucket!

Recently I found myself trying to explain to a new cyclist that fitness doesn’t always come as a free gift, even though it sometimes seems as though it does when you’re young.  In making my point I found myself talking about buckets, and since then, I’ve decided it’s a good metaphor.  So with plentiful mixing of metaphors, here goes.

I have a bucket, and you have one too - we all have one.  I try to keep my particular bucket full of water but I can only use a tablespoon to fill it.  Unfortunately, there’s a hole in the bottom of the bucket and so the water drains away if I don’t keep filling it.  If I want to keep the level the same, I only have to fill it as fast as it leaks.  But if I want to fill it completely, then obviously, I need to work hard with that tablespoon. 

My husband's wee bucket...

Once it’s full, I can keep it full fairly easily by just filling it as fast as it leaks.  The trouble is, it’s hard to get it to that point - especially as the hole gets a little bit bigger each year that I get older.

Winter is just around the corner, and in winter, I tend to get lazy with my tablespoon.  The weather, the dark nights, and the odd virus, conspire to take my attention away from my bucket-filling duties.  At least five pay-per-month public gyms have benefitted from my pathetic attempts to keep my bucket full in past winters, and I’ve had more overturned new leaves than I can list. Not surprisingly then, every year in Spring I find myself with an empty bucket, and feelings of panic as I realise how much work I’m going to have to do to get it full again. 

My little bucket

I’d hate anyone to think that I’m obsessed with fitness - that’s very far from the case.  I can cycle on my own at any speed, walking pace even, and I’m quite happy to do that.  My only problem is that if I cycle with anyone else at all, I want to keep up with them, as lagging behind is no fun at all.  I like cycling with other people, and that, regretfully means having a little bit of fitness on my side - a moderately full bucket, you might say.  

So here we go again, another winter, and another resolution.  I’ve bought running shoes, and they sit on my shoe-rack, taunting me.  Wish me luck, I’ll need it.  And all the best with your buckets too!