Crunch time

Week 6/60, and an accidental stumble on this straight and narrow path. I treat myself, if that’s the right phrase, to a sort of unhealthy meal.

Egliknusperli with rice and roasted peppers is not exactly deep-fried Mars Bars with maple syrup, but there is some deep fat frying in there somewhere. Egli is perch, from Lake Zurich. I knew that much. When we go for lunch down at the Marina, I feel obliged to eat the local residents, but  I was too stupid to remember that knusperli means ‘crunchy’. So it’s battered fish, and yes, deep fried. And with glossy white rice.  But those roasted peppers and green salad clawed back a small brownie point or two. Not that I care too much. It was freakin’ delicious.

This nutritional cataclysm hasn’t derailed the larger campaign. In 6 weeks, my weight has drifted down from 100.8 to 92.9 kilos, a drop of 7.9 kilos, or 17.4 pounds in old money. So I’m well ahead of my aim to lose an average of 1 kilo per week.

Exercise? 3 runs: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. And 2 gym visits: Friday and Sunday.

If this all sounds too good to be true, it’s because it is. These runs of which I speak… I’m struggling with stamina. Maybe I’m overdoing the low carbs.

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Some days later….

And that’s where I left it on Sunday night. It had been a great week, and included a long (for me) run, or mostly run, on Saturday morning up in Horgenberg that I should have mentioned:

I’d been to Horgenberg, the stretch of open country above Horgen, just 6 days earlier in the bleak mid-autumn snow. Now it was warm and bright like a summer’s day. At last, I think I’ve discovered my long run landscape. It’s been a puzzle: where to stretch the legs when the longer weekend obligations come around. This area of forest and rolling countryside, with its network of quiet riverside paths and leafy trails, is huge, extending all the way to Zurich — about 10 miles or so. But it also stretches in the other direction, away from the lake, for many miles — further than I would ever want to travel under my own cloud of steaming sweat. Just endless classic velevetty bright green Swiss countryside with its Heidi houses and Alpine views and clanging cattle. It could make a grown man cry, believe me.

Talking of Heidi, the author of that children’s classic, Johanna Spyri, was born and grew up here in Horgenberg, in the village of Hirzel, just 3 or 4 kilometres from the small lake. On Saturday I meandered over that way without quite reaching Hirzel. It’s easy to get distracted here and drift off onto some other Wanderweg – real or spiritual. I’ll be back.

On Monday of this week, the first day of Week 7/60, I arrived home from work, stripped off and launched my dwindling carcass into the rain and darkness for a modest 5 or 6 kilometres around the town. Arriving home, I felt as good as I have done in years.

And that is as good as it got, and where it all started to go wrong. The crunch has come.