jack

Went to the gym attached to the hotel and spa in bar hill.

It's small, but fairly nice and has a swimming pool with jacuzzi and sauna because spa.

It was busy at 5:30, but fairly quiet by the time I left.

Of course, it's a bit ridiculous starting to go to the gym instead of running outside just when the evenings are getting lighter. But I felt that if I was driving to work, it would be easier to arrange than jogging (and useful because I'm not doing cycling about).

And in fact, I felt like the treadmill and weights both worked my muscles harder than I'd been managing without equipment. Which is good, because hopefully I will start improving again. But bad, because I'd hoped I'd have figured out how to improve without them by now.

They rent towels for 50p. I'm trying to decide if it's more efficient to bring one or rent one. I like the no-hassle of picking one up, and not having several towels drying at home and trying to decide if I can reuse them or if they need to be in the washing. And not to add several towels to the washing load. But if I'm driving, the overhead of bringing a towel as well as gym things is a lot lower. And even if I needed to buy a couple of extra bath towels they would probably pay for themselves. Any thoughts?

Jack: Dear Treadmill, you have two jobs.
Treadmill: OK! I am ready to serve!
Jack: Job #1: be out of the rain!
Treadmill: I can handle that! I go faster and faster and faster, but somehow I always end up in the same place.
Jack: Thank you.
Treadmill: Yay!
Jack: And job #2: go at a particular speed.
Treadmill: I can do that, that's easy!
Jack: OK, go at 8kph to start with.
Treammill: What?
Jack: 8 kph. 5 mph. 2m/s. Go!
Treadmill: What, I don't know. Is that faster than stopped or slower than stopped?
Jack: Faster!
Treadmill: OK, 0.5 kph. Is it faster than that?
Jack: Yes!
Treadmill: OK, how about 1 kph. Is it faster than that?
Jack: Yes, lots faster!
Treadmill: OK, how about 2 kph. Or 3 kph. Is that better?
Jack: Yes, but keep going. I can't run this slowly!
Treadmill: OK. 4. 5. 6.
Jack: Great.
Treadmill: 6. 7.
Jack: OK, nearly there.
Treadmill: eightnineteneleventwelve.
Jack: Agh, stop!
Treadmill: 12.
Jack: Go back!
Treadmill: eleventennineeightsevensix.
Jack: Agh, not so far, the other way.
Treadmill: eightnineten.
Jack: Wait, wait, wait.
Treadmill: OK, 10.
Jack: Slower than that.
Treadmill: 9.9?
Jack: Slower than that.
Treadmill: 9.5?
Jack: Slower than that.
Treadmill: 9.0?
Jack: Slower than that.
Treadmill: Eight-point-five-eight-seven-point-five-sev-
Jack: Whoah!
Treadmill: Seven point five?
Jack: Up a little.
Treadmill: Seven point seven?
Jack: Up a little.
Treadmill: Seven point nine?
Jack: Up a little.
Treadmill: Eight?
Jack: Yes! Now stay there for 28 minutes.
Treadmill: Why 28?
Jack: You had TWO jobs. Everywhere else in the world EXCEPT a treadmill I can run "a little faster than this". Why can't my treadmill do "pick a particular speed and stay there". (I'd also love "choose two speeds and alternate between them, no, seriously, even if I touch the screen NEAR that point, don't accidentally forget one of my speeds and replace it with something twice as fast" but I've given up hope on that one.) It has a WHOLE touch screen for badly-implemented games, TV, internet-with-no-social-networking-sites, etc. Why do you have to set the speed solely with PLUS and MINUS buttons that go straight from "sluggish" to "way too much inertia"?
Treadmill: :(

Holy freaking blasphemy, that was cold. The blackboard said 17 degrees, but I've been spoiled by swimming inside for six months, and I almost couldn't force myself in. It was ok after 10 minutes, but before then it seemed burningly cold, all through my limbs.

June is summer, right?

I stuck to my principles and said, even if it's painful, it's much better to go in in a rush and get acclimatised rather than spend ages immersing yourself millimetre by millimetre and going "eek". But I had to nerve myself up a bit first.

The lengths are really long, too! Swimming 100m is fairly easy now, but I had to remind myself to keep going, and I couldn't stop for a break every 25m if I was swimming a bit faster than I could maintain.

( Couch to 5k, succeed! )

I always cut gym posts because they're often very obnoxious to people who don't want to read them all, is there anything else I can do to make them less intrusive?

Today I (cycled to work AND) jogged for 16 minutes continually, up from 1 minute a few months ago. I feel really good, but trying to restrain the impatience to get up to 20min and 30min, when I feel I could say I could jog without stretching the truth.

I didn't bring my headphones, so the main challenge was staying distracted enough to ignore the good-muscle-pain, although by the end I was starting to feel I was running up against my cardio limit and my tendon-risk-limit.

Although, while I'm getting used to going to the gym, I still keep feeling like an interloper -- maybe this is for people fitter or thinner or richer or posher or more confident or better than me. I don't think that's true; I have every reason to go to a gym (or exercise in another way, whichever I prefer). But I still keep having to squash my hindbrain down.

The other day, there was a fire alarm at the gym. I was half way through changing, and was sensibly able to slip on shirt, stuff everything into bag, and grab shoes during the first twenty seconds of everyone looking at each other and thinking "is this a test which is going to stop after 20s".

So everyone trooped outside, and I managed to be neither freezing, nor burning, although I had to put my shoes on outside. The staff were actually very organised, having thermal blankets for people who had to come outside in gym clothes.

I wondered what happened to people left in the swimming pool, but it seemed they were able to gather with the lifeguard just inside the fire door, with a clear escape if necessary, but not actually going out into the december air yet.

I was glad the alarm wasn't a couple of minutes earlier, or I would have just started getting changed, and not really have time to covered, nor able to go back through the swimming pool.

However, although I was able to grab everything else, I failed to grab my hat, and hat to wait until it was over to go back to get it. I am not quite Indiana Jones yet :)

I went to the gym, fulfilling my "twice weekly" resolution on the last two days of the week. I did the treadmill for half an hour: 5 minutes walking, then 25 minutes alternating walking (5.3km/h or 3.3mi/hr) for a minute and jogging for a minute (7.8 km/hr or 4.8mi/hr).

I felt really good. I was bathed in sweat, and felt like I'd had a really good workout, but my legs didn't hurt, and I didn't feel ready to collapse afterwards.

I felt really pleased at being able to do half an hour, even though that was alternating walking and jogging, because a month ago I'm not sure I could have quite done it. So I really have got better (a little bit). And I've got up to a time that's reasonable for a gym session, so I don't need to worry about that as much, and can concentrate on increase speed or proportion of jogging.

I wasn't sure in advance I'd do half an hour. Last time I went up from 20min to 22 min, and I didn't want to promise myself too much and renege, so I said I'd do the same again since it'd been a week since I'd done it. But after 22 minutes I felt fine to continue so I reset the machine and did another 8. Yay me!

I couldn't have done much more, though. I tried to continue the penultimate set, and started to feel "I can't breathe, I want to throw up" quite soon, so I went back to walking until the final set. But I can hopefully increase the proportion a bit, going to 65 s jogging, 55 s walking, etc.

I signed up for the gym, and went swimming, although I'll have a proper induction on Friday.

It feels really good to have swum for an hour, and really good to think "that's plenty, I don't have to push myself absolutely as far as I can, I can leave now, have an evening of other stuff, and come again later in the week, even if only for half an hour."

I swam 65 lengths -- does anyone know if they're 20m or 25m? 25m is the standard, but I can't judge if the pool is shorter because I usually swim at Jesus green. Fitocracy says "yay".

It's ever so strange being in public without my glasses. I can see people, but I can't see faces, so I can't tell if someone is looking at me, so everyone seems very generic, I feel obliged to plaster a goofy grin on my face in case anyone looks at me and thinks I'm scowling because I didn't realise, and it's easy to stare at people I'm thinking "is that a fuzzy pink blob or a person" when I'm completely visible to them.