It was just as Tony Abbott stepped off stage in Darwin that he started to feel the pinch of his morning workout.
He's compared winning this election to climbing Mt Everest, and the opposition leader exercises every day - often before dawn - to prep himself for the top job.
So it wasn't like the fit 56-year-old to whinge about a pulled muscle, particularly in front of the nation's finest young men and women at Robertson Barracks.
"Just started to feel my hammies," he winced, bounding off the dais to inspect tanks and helicopters and talk Afghanistan with around 100 troops.
To give him credit, the opposition leader had put his body on the line earlier that day for a boot camp with troops from A-squadron in 1st Armoured Regiment.
The punishing routine in Darwin's soupy tropical heat on Friday left Mr Abbott covered in mud and sweat, and feeling the burn later on.
The troops insisted he held his own, and gave him a medal to prove it, but later he thanked them for going easy on him.
"If I'm bent over double for the next couple of days of the campaign you'll know why," he joked.
Muscle twinges didn't stop him from pressing ahead with his first day in Darwin of this election campaign for more macho activities at HMAS Coonawarra naval base.
After inspecting an Armidale class patrol boat, Abbott had an awkward off the cuff encounter when he pressed three sailors about their experiences dealing with asylum seeker boats.
The responses - challenging, tiring and frustrating - prompted senior brass to intervene and shut down the conversation.
"Sir, I'd prefer if we don't talk on that line and move on," Lieutenant Commander Michael Doncaster told Mr Abbott.
Mr Abbott launched the coalition's regional deterrence framework to crack down on people smuggling, then it was off to splash the cash locally.
At a dirt patch next to a busy highway - the site for the long-overdue $150 million Palmerston Regional Hospital - Mr Abbott met NT chief minister Adam Giles.
"Mate, welcome to the Top End," Giles shouted, above the din of freight trucks screaming down the expressway.
Troops, boats and a chance to scuff your RM Williams in red dirt - all in all it was a solid day's campaigning for Mr Abbott in the Top End.
