I’m heading into my forties in archery and for some reason fitness is very important to me now.
It’s not so much the beginning of a midlife crisis – for example, I don’t know when one’s middle age begins – but exercising six days a week helps with concentration when I have to write stories, while it also gives me the necessary freedom ( hopefully) allows you to consume a TV Bar or two every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Eating healthy is a luxury that my home loan, the monthly electricity bill and the price of petrol do not allow me to do.
Eight TV Bars, for example, are much cheaper than some exotic seed I have to sprinkle over my oatmeal.
But left it there.
My father-in-law recently moved to Ballito and with the prospect of free accommodation – which I also desire, of course – my wife and I hit the road to the sea.
Yet I was a man on a mission.
I recently Chariots of Fire watched and I wanted to run on the beach with power and opinion.
We had hardly stopped in Ballito before I was on my way to the beach; dressed in me PT-trousers and white T-shirt with my beloved wife humming beside me on the soft sea sand.
This morning we will go jogging!
However, we have barely moved away when a wind rises and blows the sand with vicious whips against our face, arms and legs.
“Eina, it’s unpleasant!” we both scream as we spit sea sand out of our mouths. The jogging-on-the-beach dream suffered shipwreck just then and there.
But the drive to train was still present and after a quick internet search we decided to train in the mornings at CrossFit Ballito for our remaining two days.
I am an avid but average CrossFitter. For example, my wife can lift heavier things, while also being significantly less out of breath when doing burpees or pull-ups.
In addition, I am also an introvert whose sense of humor is understood by only a select few acquaintances.
Yet we both felt at home at CrossFit Ballito. The trainers are friendly, skilled and knowledgeable with thighs that are apparently strong enough to push the cattle into the Bully Beef-to kick in a can.
There are also special drop-in packages that will fit your holiday wallet well.
Needless to say, the first training session was a leg-breaker: there were gesquatran and sweated while in between (while crouching) medicine balls were thrown against the beautifully painted wall.
Also by the way: In Ballito a 200m run also feels considerably shorter than in Pretoria.
At our beloved CrossFit gym in the Moot, you regularly have to steel yourself to run a distance equivalent to the Comrades marathon when you are expected to run 200 m during a training session.
In Ballito we trotted cautiously behind the main group; You never know: Maybe the 200 m route follows a return road to Pietermaritzburg and back.
However, we were just out of the training hall when the front members turned around again.
“Oh, that’s nice,” my wife and I cheered in unison as we drove our legs to higher heights with renewed zeal.
So when you’re in Ballito and worrying about your proverbial weekend body while devouring your third Magnum ice cream on the beach; so visit the local CrossFit gym.
It just might be more fun and more rewarding than jogging on the beach.
