THE SECRET TO MAKING A COMEBACK? JUST START

"THIS IS WHAT DECONDITIONING LOOKS LIKE," I said out loud to no one, as I looked at the heart-rate reading on my phone and gasped for breath. "This shouldn't be so hard."

- NATASCHA GRIEF

My lungs burned. I physically couldn't consume enough air. My heartbeat pounded in my ears.

I had been pedalling for 15 minutes.

Fifteen minutes of pedalling a bike for the first time in way more than that many months. On a trainer, no less.

"This shouldn't be so hard!" I said again.

It was a challenge not to give up in that moment. It would have been so much easier to give up in that moment. That moment sucked.

In that moment, I realised just how much of my fitness had leaked away, over a year that had somehow stretched into almost two of a maddening, one-stepforward, one-step-back dance of healing a back injury - the choreography made so much more aggravating mentally and emotionally because of how non-linear recovery is.

I had spent years acquiring strength and endurance, with the attention and care that rational, responsible adults give to their retirement portfolios, and now it felt like all those gains had completely evaporated.

Just... gone.

I've always been a beyond-average cyclist. And after more than a couple of decades of lifting and 10-plus years as a personal trainer, I'm pretty good at anything that involves picking up heavy things and putting them down. I've always been strong for my size, and able to put on muscle more easily than most.