Observing life: My path to a strong body and mind is lined with speeding tickets

Usually, I’m driving a black Ferrari around the capital’s streets. Some days, it’s a ­Jaguar; other days, a Porsche. I drive them – in my head – every day.

In real life, though, I drive a Honda Odyssey – a minivan that sucks all the cool right out of me. But, with two kids and a Labrador retriever to tote around, that’s the car I’ve been dealt in this life. The problem with thinking I’m driving a Ferrari every day is in what’s happening to my bank account.

In the last eight weeks, I’ve had seven speeding tickets. I’m not driving 50 kilometres over the limit or anything, but I’m clearly driving too fast. What makes the volume of tickets in such a short time even more unbelievable is that they are all in the same spot on Airport Road. The last time my husband texted me “you got another ticket”, I told him I’d stop taking Airport Road. He suggested not speeding instead.

I checked the times on the tickets and, it turns out, every ticket I’ve been slapped with has happened while I’m ­driving to the gym in Zayed Sports City. Clearly, with music blasting and my mind already focused on the brutal workout I’m driving to, something in me changes.

I started doing intense one-hour workouts – five days a week – on January 3. They’re clearly beneficial for my body, but they’ve also reignited an intense, laser-like focus and a fierce competitive streak that I haven’t seen in a while. I’ve had some significant benefits from these CrossFit-style workouts. Since starting, I’ve lost 5 kilograms and have gained significant strength. When I first started, I could only do a 40 second plank (a core exercise that requires you to hold a position similar to a push-up for as long as possible). I can now hold one for more than two minutes. I’ve upped the number of push-ups I can do in 60 seconds, from 42 to 60; increased my squats in 60 seconds from 38 to 54. I’ve lost nine centimetres around my waist; dropped my resting heart rate from 91 to 60; and I shaved 23 seconds off the time it takes me to do a 500-metre row. I’m starting to look like my old self again – and not just physically. I have indeed missed this physical body that I had before a full-time food-writing career changed it; but I’ve also ­recovered the mental strength that was missing for too long. It’s a result I didn’t expect when I started.

When I’m in the gym, my brain is getting as much of a workout as the rest of my body and it fuels me. Every time I think I can’t do one more dead lift or one more push-up or one more box jump (usually at the end of the workouts), I shut that voice down and just keep going. It would be easy to stop or slow down but I can’t. Pushing through it is a battle I have with myself every day - and winning that battle is bringing me back to who I used to be. It has brought back the kind of tenacity I had one summer at age 22 when I ran 2.5 kilometres twice every single day with a stopwatch to make sure I beat my previous day’s result by at least one second. By the end of the summer, I had shaved two minutes off my time.

When I’m in that focused zone, there’s a feeling of invincibility. That benefit has far outweighed what the training has done for my physical self. I’m more focused in all aspects of my life – and apparently, I also drive a bit faster. Fixing that will be my next battle to win.