Valkyrie Squad Day 41: Moving Indoors
- Mia Garlock
- Oct 17, 2022
- 4 min read
The Autumn rains have come in hard and swift, and endless. It’s been raining almost nonstop for a week now, with short pauses between storms once or twice a day. Nearly every morning I wake up early, I am met with harsh winds blowing the rain sideways across the landscape. Reminding me of what Windhaven must be like in autumn, before the snows fall in the mountain village, there must be wind and rain. Being that I am not an Illyrian, I prefer not to be out in that weather, thank you very much.
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The kink in my neck that was causing me pain all day yesterday, is lingering. Who knew that sleeping in your mid-thirties could yield so much potential for lasting discomfort and injury. Probably enabled by the barometric inflammation I endure every time the wind changes direction, it has left me with a headache that hovers around the back of my head and a steady ache where my neck meets my shoulders. Where is Madja when I need her healing?
My kids being the light sleepers they are, working out inside at 5a presents me with several issues. Most of them involving the amount of noise I make during my workouts. Especially in week 4 of Novice, when the intensity is harder, and I am grunting and groaning my way through each weighted set of moves. Then there’s the thumping and thudding that occurs with doing moves faster, or if there’s any kind of footwork involved, like say Mountain Climbers, or a move that requires picking up and putting down a weight repeatedly. There’s also the issue of Yrsa, who seems to think that my working out is a form of torture and insists that the noise I make mean I’m dying and she then begins protesting by barking and whining at me.
That being said, I saw the wind blowing the rain sideways across the yard this morning, and once I sent my husband off to work, I went back to bed. I was in fact very tired, as I stayed up too late reading again. My eyes felt like they were full of sand when I first got up, and I scolded myself a little for staying up so late to read, and then promptly burrowed under my quilt until around 8am.
Still raining, so I fixed the kids breakfast and got myself dressed to workout while they were busy.
Today we have 25 Minutes of Core work, and I remember this one being painful. Not like dying painful, but I remember sweating and swearing as I went through this the first time. With how much improvement and strength gains I’ve noticed while doing week 3’s workouts last week, I’m feeling a little cocky about how well I’ll get through this one today.
We did another one of those workouts today where we got all the way through, only to find out that we had to go back 5 moves and repeat them on the opposite side. All I wanted to do was stop, I was counting droplets of sweat hitting my mat, and the shouting inside my head telling me I was weak and I could stop whenever I wanted and no one would know. I would know. I would know I gave up and I would feel like shit all day, probably ending up binge eating my disappointment later. I refused to quit, and I made myself finish out the other side of all those moves.
When we finished everything it was an effort to drag myself through the cooldown stretches. I very nearly took myself out into the torrential downpour that was taking place outside just so I could cool off properly. I hate working out inside, I’d rather have cold fingers and toes than be sweating while the furnace churns out warm air against the storms outside. But I still did it.
This one was hard, but filled with so much improvement and progress, that even as I hated the sweat and claustrophobic feeling of working out in a warm house, I smiled at myself laying on my mat, soggy with sweat and guzzling breath.
There were 2 new Mindstilling Audios available this morning for me to choose from, a new Walking Mindstilling and one named Ramiel, after the Mountain that Gwyn, Emerie, and Nesta had to climb. The mountain that Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel reached during their own Blood Rite. I glanced out the window as I downloaded them and decided that Ramiel was going to be today’s Mindstilling quest, because if I went outside in anything other than a rain suit, I’d be swimming down the street, not walking.
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Maybe there will be a break in the rain later and I’ll be able to take Yrsa for a walk. We haven’t been on many lately because of the weather, and she’s becoming an unruly beast because of it. I would offer to take her and bring an umbrella, but she hates being soggy. When I tried to take her out so she could go potty, she stopped on the threshold of the door and looked up at me as if to say, “You expect me to go out in that?” Maybe she really does need that silly raincoat.
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