Chapter 8: In which a decision is made.

Second week in a row with very little effort to show for it. Got up on Monday, early doors, and went out for a run, but I haven't been out since then. Woke up early today, looked out the window, and went back to bed. Snowing again. It may be too late in the year now to quote Game Of  Thrones and say that "winter is coming", but it sure as hell doesn't seem to be in a hurry to go away again.

This leads me to the decision I've taken:

I'm joining the gym.

You can all stop laughing now. Frankly, it's the only sensible option. I just don't have the fitness levels to be outside toiling away through blizzards. I'm struggling to run in nice(ish) weather at the moment. Plus, I live about 300 yards away from one of South Lanarkshire Council's fine establishments. I say, fine, this is an assumption though as I've not been along yet. It could be a rat infested shithole for all I actually know, although, running away from rats could serve as a decent form of motivation. I'm assuming it's fine though.

I recently took Sky Sports and Movies off my cable package, so the money saved from that can fund the gymness. Money previously spent watching other people run, will now fund me to get off my arse and do it for myself. That's logic youngsters.

I'm off work on a weeks holiday next week, so among the many grand schemes I shall have on the go, will be the whole going along and signing my life away taking out a gym membership. Previous experience of gyms brings memories of overly fit instructors trying to force you onto the various torture devices one after the other, so I expect a large part of my first visit will consist of finding polite ways to tell them to bugger off as I just want a go of the treadmills since it's pissing down outside. Sure, maybe later down the line I'll try out the myriad of other fun ways to make yourself hurt, but just now I think I'll stick to the basics. Baby steps and that.

Anyway, continuing my recent trend of gratuitous music videos, here's another one:

Chapter 7: In which nothing much has happened all week

This week has been a bit of a let down. I was working early all week, so set the alarm clock even earlier. Monday morning, 5:30am, the alarm goes off, I get up, look out the window, go back to bed. Bloody snow. Tuesday wasn't much better when I woke up again.

Wednesday I didn't even try.

Thursday was just a write off. I woke up around 2.30am, tried to get back to sleep, failed, and by the time I had planned to go out and have a run, I was far too tired for anything. By the time I started my work at 8:30am, I'd already been awake for around 6 hours and was expecting lunch already. By the time I'd finished work I was ready to go to bed, but couldn't or I'd just end up waking up at stupid o'clock again. Smashing.

Friday morning was about eking out as much sleep before work as possible.

I feel quite bad that I've not been out trying to run so far this week, and that in itself is a vast improvement on my outlook. I'm naturally a lazy bastard, so the fact that I've not tried to exercise is bothering me is definately a sign of progress. Or the apocalypse. One or the other.

Incidentally, regarding the snow: why is it mostly people in 4x4s who are incapable of driving in it? Get a bloody grip and learn to use your vehicle properly. If you insist on owning one of these non essesntial bastards (in an urban environment, obviously they can be essential in some places), then figure out how the damn thing works. This is Scotland, not Norway, it's only a couple of inches of snow. Don't get me started on the news reporting on the snow "chaos" down south either. If it doesnt come over the top of a pair of trainers, then you've no excuses.

Confession Time

The attempt to go an entire month without ordering pizza has been a failure. I know, you're not angry, just disappointed. Or don't really care. Sometimes you come home from work of an evening and just can't face cooking though, and damn it was tasty. And half price, which helped a lot. Still, I'm well down on my usual monthly pizza quota, so I'm still ahead on average.

Anyhoo, the plan is now to get up early tomorrow (Saturday) and get at least one attempt at exercise in before the week is over. I'm off to bed.