It may come as no surprise to you that as the temperatures plummet below −20°C and the sun rises for shorter and shorter periods each day (currently for no longer than two hours), finding that extra bit of motivation to tackle some exercise before or after work becomes a much bigger effort than back at home… Well, maybe for the other stations at least! We’ve had an amazingly active community going into winter and it shows no sign of slowing down what so ever. Morale is high and people are getting in to better shape than ever. Frank, our Doc, says our station total weight is continuing to go down, somewhat contrary to what is expected at this time of year.
Over these last few weeks twelve of us have been doing The Push Up Challenge clocking up 54,396 push ups in total. Our resident Turdologist Toddy, has been running two boxing session a week for people of all skills – so far only managing to break the doctor’s finger. Station Leader Matt runs a Friday morning bootcamp style fitness class and conducts private guided meditations. I’ve been running a daily ‘4:30 Club’, exercise sessions every morning and afternoon (4:30am/4:30pm) for whoever wishes to join in. Frank and Brilly have their push bikes strapped into rollers and have been riding all sorts of virtual routes since the moment they landed on the icy continent. For ANZAC Day we held our very own Hero Challenge in honour of CPL Cameron Baird VC MG in which we conducted three brutal back to back segments of punishment to raise funds for the charity ‘Cam’s Cause’. After all this hard work, our community Yogi, Mark, conducts Sunday Yoga in two classes (Hatha and Yin) and even Station Mechanic Shane does his intimate guided Yoga with his beloved Adrian on the DVD player.
We’ve also accrued quite a gym posse as Aaron, Matt, Brilly, Frank, Guy, Todd can be constantly found throwing plates around most afternoons. Our indoor climbing wall has been getting a run for its money with two sessions a week and a regular following of enthusiastic climbers. Our Chef Rocket is in the gym every lunchtime and goes for regular runs when the weather permits. On a weekend it’s very common for a group to head up to Gwamm, a long steep walking circuit on the ice plateau behind station or get away to one of the mountainous regions for a hike.
Individually, we’ve all been doing our own little things to stay fit and active and it’s not until you write them down that you realise we are a very healthy and happy bunch of expeditioners.
Smokey, Mawson Carpenter
