I Felt Like Quitting - Many Times

Resilience Account Deposits

#smilingontheinside – Friday 11 July 2025

I moved the goalposts and changed plans so many times this week you could’ve called me Donald.

On Monday I was going to step-climb 11x (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). But I realised I’d overdone it over the weekend and I didn’t have 11x in my legs on Monday.

Then it was going to be 7x daily. But the voice in my head that kept reminding me my promise to myself was for this week to be an eleven-repeat week just wouldn’t quieten. On Wednesday I put an end to her incessant nagging and achieved 11 repeats but it was hard. Oh-so-hard. Diminishing returns and all of that…

After Wednesday, the goal somehow morphed into 3,000 for the week. How I got there I have no idea, considering this week was only meant to be 33 repeats at 2,772 total. Three thousand…??

Yesterday – in the pouring rain (again!) I completed the four repeats to keep my daily promise for this week to get to 36 repeats. I even protected my car seat with my manky old oilskin coat and a towel – that towel I barely used but it reminded me of when I dug in hard to complete the Wellington Half Marathon ages ago.

I was surprised to see that the manhole cover that’s been under water all of this week from the heavy rains, was actually visible today. I bet it’ll be under water again tomorrow!

A total of 3,024 ascends for the week. #smilingontheinside

Do I Feel Better…?

Mentally, I feel better – because I did it – even though I felt like quitting. This week just about every ascent felt hard!

Physically…? The jury is still out. This coming week won’t be as hard… maybe I’ll just do 2,000 instead… to give my legs some recovery time… depending on what I end up doing over the weekend.

Building My Resilience Account

I’m sure that no one looks forward to times in their lives when they have to dig deep and start making withdrawals from their Resilience Account. I know I sure don’t! The thing is though, you never know when those times are going to be.

For example, we’ve been waiting to get something done with one business, where the woman involved lost her father a few weeks back. For the last three? four? weeks, we’ve been told she’ll be back on Monday. That Monday has yet to arrive. We were told this coming Monday but then yesterday, that was updated to maybe the following week.

I just hope that she has a very deep and full Resilience Account, because it sure sounds like she’s withdrawing from it now.

Grit and Determination

One of the reasons I persisted this week with my step-climbing – even when I didn’t want to because it hurt… because I was tired… because it was raining… was because I knew it was good for me.

Even though I knew on a physical level, I’d probably reached the point of diminishing returns, I knew that mentally, I needed to continue.

Why? Because this persistence, grit and determination were all little deposits I was depositing into my Resilience Account. That “rainy day” account I’m not looking forward to using, but know that life is life and it will be required. One day.

For that, I’m proud of myself for continuing. Coupled with grit, determination and persistence, are self-care, self-promises-kept and a sense of achievement – other small deposits into my Resilience Account. #smilingontheinside

Beta Testing Fitness & Wellness App

Alan’s put his hand up to beta-test a 30-day fitness and wellness smartwatch app. It’s an aviation-sector app that works alongside a Garmin smartwatch.

When I started step-climbing I dusted off the many smart watches we have in the “tech drawer” to see whether I could revive any of them. I’ve had a few over the years but the only one that didn’t cause a skin reaction was my very original Polar. Alan replaced the battery on that soooo many times over the years. I can’t remember why I replaced it with something smarter… maybe because phones got smarter as well…?

But with Alan about to become especially focussed on how “well” and “fit” he is with this app, it’s given me the impetus to go back to wearing a smart watch again.

Right now I’m testing a Samsung we dusted off… the date and time are wrong… I’m waiting to see whether my arm flares up before I faff around setting it up and synching it.

The watch Alan’s got as part of the testing programme is a Garmin D2 Delta Pilot Watch. It’s pretty sophisticated!

At the moment he’s wearing two watches – he wants to compare the results of each – to see whether they both tell the same story. After the 30 days is up I doubt he’ll continue to wear both… maybe he’ll gift me his other watch… cos (so far) he likes some of the aviation related info the Garmin gives him.