Knuckling Down

The sky is that awful leaden grey that doesn't change its tone from daybreak to dusk - a sharp contrast to yesterday's frosty sunshine. It is far, far less tolerable. I heard the water trickling off the roof into the gutters during the night and knew we'd awaken to more gloomy weather. It is getting beyond a joke.
I went down to the rowing club this morning and we were discussing that we hadn't seen the bottom towpath (which means it's safe for all classes of boats and experience to go on the river) since mid-December. The leisure squad's Christmas outing was undertaken in v-e-r-y marginal conditions; high water levels and fast stream, but with experienced steersmen and a safety launch accompanying the quads, but the river hasn't really dropped since then. It's been one of those winter's when we might as well have said 'no rowing for three months' so sporadic have been our outings. One head-race was cancelled last Saturday due to adverse weather conditions and I can quite forsee that's going to be a recurring theme over the next few months.
I suppose we're in a far better situation here that down south, where the Thames Valley is now severely flooded, as are the Somerset Levels and all the rivers in the south-west have burst their banks.
Touch wood, the Yorkshire Ouse hasn't come as high as it did last year when we had to evacuate the boathouse THREE times in almost as many weeks. But then after that, we had an exceptionally benign Spring/Summer/Autumn conditions-wise.
So this morning, a gym session it was; weights for me and ergos for the hardy leisure squad souls that bothered to turn up.
Not much fun (or leisure) for them, but there was at least some sense of achievement.
Hopefully I will still be able to move in 48 hours time - last week's legs session left me barely able to walk, with muscles so tender I could bear them to be touched, let alone knocked in any way.
It's always very, very difficult in the early stages of a fitness/strength campaign to just knuckle down and get the reps/miles in. It would have been the easiest thing this morning to look out of the window and think 'Naaah - don't fancy it today' and pull the metaphorical duvet over the head.
Taking the l-o-n-g view means thinking how I'll feel sitting in my all-in-one lycra, in the boat, in the Summer: relatively pleased with the training results, or wishing I'd done those reps? How I'll feel on the beach....happy in a bikini, or opting for the big T-shirt?
Yes, I know, I know....I talked only yesterday of not being vain, and really I'm not. But I like to feel strong and - I suppose - to look like I've made a bit of an effort training-wise.
As I've always maintained, I'm more interested in what people can DO, rather than what they LOOK
like.
That goes for me too.