Months ago I set myself a work target and my reward for working solidly and achieving my goal was giving my bedroom a facelift. New paint, new carpet and new furniture – the works.

After successfully completing my goal I took myself to the shops and chose my new paints, carpet and furniture – I was excited!

Note to self – a reward for completing such a hard work task should not equal more effort. Why didn’t I choose to buy myself some new clothes or a spa treatment?

Now this will sound silly to those painting professionals and enthusiasts but I underestimated the effort of painting.

The day had come, I had rallied the troupes in the form of my boyfriend, armed with a roller and several paint brushes. The hard work had been done I thought I had already moved my furniture, applied the drop sheets, washed the walls and suffered a dust induced sneezing tirade, surely the painting part would be easy ( It’s obvious i’ve never painted before right?).

Mark was very encouraging “come on Suze you do the first roll’ and with that the painting had begun, I quickly gave up on the ceiling and took to the architraves. Were your arms meant to burn that way I wondered? I do clean and presses and overhead squats at the gym, why was having your arms up rolling a ceiling so difficult?

It was time to attack the walls, I put my favourite girly 80s mix on the Ipod (much to Marks dismay) and decided to turn this painting thing into a full body work out. Looking quite weird i’m sure I applied my roll downs doing a full squat and pushing my body weight through the roller, core drawn all muscles activated, I moved rhythmically through a whole section, reapplied some paint and turned my sights to the upper half. Here I loaded my legs held the roller tightly and bounced my way up and down along the wall with the roller, almost like the exercise the push press. I was bopping away and found myself in time with the 80s hit I want that man by Deborah Harry.

I’m sure to those who actually have painting experience this is the worst form they’ve ever heard but hey I managed to cover the wall evenly and at the end of the day that’s all I cared about.

Disillusioned and pretty exhausted I tried to convince myself that we would only need that one coat, but as I went around inspecting I was sorely disappointed finding uneven patches. Funny how it was only when we commenced painting that I realised exactly how big my room was.

The next day I decided to wake up early and combat the second coat alone. I returned to my playlist and bopped along, fixing the mistakes of the previous day and making some new ones. My arms and core were sore in an unusual way i’d never experienced, I was pleased.

One of my nerdy trainer pass times (that i’m not ashamed to admit) is looking at activities and seeing how I can turn it into a workout. I’ll take a workout wherever I can get one, remember it all adds up.

Next up – ripping up carpet!