OK, so probably not quite with a vengeance, but I have returned to it. If you look at the time gap between this post and the last, you should be able to work out I've not really done too much in the intervening time. I could blame work commitments (my shifts were a pain in the arse), etc, but in reality blaming it on self indulgant lazyness is closer to the mark.
I only managed to go along to the gym once last week. I did feel suitably guilty about this though, if that makes you feel any better. This week I've went back and decided just to stick to the C25K that I was doing before I joined the gym. Once I'm more comfortable with this running malarky I'll work the gym routine they gave me in around this (the more astute readers may notice I change my exercise plans more often than Kerry Katona (sp?) changes addictions). Since I've not gone entirely without some for of exercise, I decided to jump back in at the same point I left off - week 3. Loaded up the podcast, started up the treadmill, and away I went. You know what? Wasn't as difficult as I expected. That was Monday night. Went back on Wednesday night for week 3, run 2. A little bit harder, but again, not as tough as expected. I may be getting the hang of this. We'll see tomorrow morning when I head along again for week 3 run 3.
I guess what that shows is that although you may not notice the change at first, it starts to creep up on you, and you get a little bit fitter each time without realising it. Happy days. Looking back at the first blog post where I described myself as a wheezy mess, I realise that I'm still a wheezy mess, but it takes longer to get that way and I recover a lot quicker. I'm still not in a position where I can comfortably run for extended periods of time, but I can definately see the improvements and that helps to realise that I'll get there in the end.
Marathons and suchlike
More experienced and smarter people will have touched on this in better read and more thought out blogs than mine, but in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon, and unfolding drama that followed, I sometimes wish that Rufus had been right. It's times like this that the world could do with Wyld Stallyns bringing peace and uniting us all under the banner of rock music. I'm not trying to make light of the situation by any means, but there's an awful lot of folk on this planet could do with "being excellent to each other".
Gym is an abreviation of the word "gymnasium", which comes to us, like many things, from Greece in days of yore. It means something along the lines of "place to be naked". Now, for those of you of a literal disposition, do NOT take this at face value. Apparently it's entirely unacceptable to stroll around these places au naturale and any attempts to point out that you are merely adhering to the very definition of the name will be regarded with contempt by members of your local constabulary. Now luckily, I am occasionaly blessed with the gift of foresight, and so carried out some brief research into what is expected before I went along, but I thought I'd just provide this quick advice to those of you without the time to check on these matters, or who would just blindly stumble along and find out your social faux pas after the fact. Don't say you haven't been warned.
Onto those visits themselves then. I have now been along to the premises three times so far. The first two visits consisted of brief induction sessions. The first giving an overview of the various cardio type machines, the second giving a lesson in self torture via various machines based around the premise of lifting, pulling or pushing of weights. Each of these sessions lasted half an hour to 45 minutes at a guess, and neither consisted of any form of particularly strenuous work out, so I had a 20 minute go of the treadmills after each.
The third session I was to be provided with a "routine". I arrived to be greeted by one of the instructors who started to lay out a work out plan for me to try and follow.
"Is there anything you don't particularly like?" he asked. 'Ah good', thought I, a reasonable chap who understands I should enjoy my time spent honing my body to physical mediocrity. Blindly did I stroll into the trap.
"I really can't stand the rowing machine" I answered, joy and hope shining in my eyes no doubt.
"Good," came the response, "first thing when you arrive, you're doing five minutes on the rowing machine to warm up. It'll get your mind into gym mode and get rid of all that outside world nonsense." The rest of the program was made up in quick order, a mix of cardio and weighty stuff.
The joy and hope died then. "Now, how many times are you planning to use the gym?" "Two or three times a week" I replied, a bit more wary by now.
"You're going to do this program three times a week. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays you don't need to do this. Just come in and spend an hour on one of the cardio machines. You can have Sundays off though,"
I can only assume the man had once wanted to become a PE teacher, as all of this was delivered with the earnest, vindictive glint of the eye common within that profession*.
Now, six days of actual factual exercise per week is a wildly optomistic expection of someone with my levels of current fitness and aptitude for malaise, and realistically it's just not going to happen. You know what though, I'll give it a bash. Now, I don't man I'm going to be in that gym six days a week. I'll try and get there at least four or five though. Starting from a long period of virtually no exercise I can only guess that day after dayof physical activity, without rest between, could end up causing some damage, but we'll see how I get on.
Anyway, time to stop bothering the world with drivel and go tidy my domicile.
Have fun.
Notes: *this evil glint may have been entirely fictionalised after the fact, but I wouldn't be surprised if it had been true
