Several years ago I watched SAS recruits running up and back down Pen Y Fan mountain in the Brecon Beacons. They carried a rucksack of bricks. Or at least a heavily weighted pack. It's a tough slog up there - I have walked up this hill in rain, mist, sun and don't particularly want to do it again. It slowed these fit young men down a little but not noticeably. But I am neither young, a man or particularly SAS fit, although I am pretty good at hill walking.
I can visualise a rucksack of bricks. I lifted an infantryman's belt kit in the Gloucesters museum - that was enough for me! I know it's weight and drag. The way it bends the back and makes your every step into a heavy plod. It's been a very apt metaphor for the stress and pressure I have felt over the last year of financial and working uncertainty and the previous few years in a working environment where everything teetered on the edge of financial chaos. With an unhealthy dose of competititve male argumentativeness thrown in.
I am very slowly learning that I can lay down a brick at a time, and feel my back straighten.
