Roadwork

 

   Early 20th century boxers called one of their essential conditioning exercises "Roadwork".  It was simply running on the road while shadow-boxing.  My variation is marching and high-stair-climbing with a 2kg dumbbell in each hand.  It works my legs and core, and it's a great aerobic workout.  Three times a week.  

   I do an hour of prep before marching.  First a micro-dose of C sativa, then Tai Chi, Yoga, stretches, and calisthenics.  I recently added a second round of TC and cals using 1kg weights.  Then I hit the pavement with the 2kg ones.  

   I have been constantly pushing it, swinging the weights, twisting, pumping them, especially focusing on working my core.  I am exhausted by the end of these workouts and need a rest day between them, but I am feeling stronger.  My sciatica pain is mostly gone, although I still get twinges of a reminder of it if I move carelessly.  

   Views: 

   From the top of the stairways up to the Rama 7 Bridge, I can watch the river traffic, eg, tugboats pulling long trains of barges, and express boats.  Looking north, up-river, I can see six Buddhist temples and one new mosque, which is very beautiful in white and light green.  

   At home, from the corner of my veranda, I have a view of a couple of the only trees left out back.  I keep my binoculars out there for watching the squirrels and birds.  My pair of Zebra doves came back and nested a 3rd time on the veranda, successfully hatching another chick.  The doves were a bit disrupted this time because of major demolition of a building just across the wall on the side of the electric company.  

   This disrupted other creatures as well:  a big Monitor Lizard was perched on the fence at the top of the wall, evidently flushed out of his underground home.  His body was two feet long, with a very long tail, and he had muscular arms and huge claws.  

   I am reading Stephen Batchelor, *After Buddhism: a re-thinking of the dharma for a secular age* (2015).  Batchelor and I are on the same page about Siddhartha Gautama.  

-Zenwind. 

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