Today was my first visit to the gym in… some time. In fact, I’ve not been at all this year — and we’re 1/3 of the way through it! My weight has started to climb back up, stairs and hills are interesting again, I’m becoming noticeably lethargic, and yet I’m finding it difficult to sleep properly and to get up in the mornings. There are no valid excuses, merely a list of reasons that begin with me first not being able to go due to injury, enjoying the spare time a little too much, then falling out of the exercise habit and even forgetting to go, and then trying to regain the motivation to get past the embarrassment and gain the willpower to actually get back into the routine.
It’s awful to be back at square one again, knowing that all — or most — of the progress I’ve made in the past has gone again. Still, the irritating optimist I try to hide behind a mask of faux-pessimism knows that I’ve done it once before, so I can do it again.
So today I met Tarkwin at the leisure centre, where we both discovered that the planned gym extension has now been completed, and found ourselves standing in what felt like a proper commercial gym. A strange feeling for a council facility, which my experiences have shown are usually grubby, run-down and provide well-loved wobbly machines. It was unexpectedly encouraging.
Surprisingly, my exercise card was still in the rack, yet Tarkwin’s wasn’t. The staff put a sticker on the card every 2-3 months to ask you to book a Re-Focus (a reassessment to you and me) and if, after a month, you haven’t booked it they remove your card to free up space in the card rack for members who attend — or so the theory goes. I ripped my sticker off late last year as I hadn’t been going often at that point, and the “torn sticker” look seems to get the hint across.
I did most of the scheduled workout, with the exception of the dip/pullup machine and rower, and kept all the intensities at the lowest of the sliding scale and found that, although it was hard work, I managed it without killing myself or feeling bad afterwards. Very pleased indeed — and lifted some of the despair I had at having let myself go (yet) again. Again. Again.
Looking forward to Wednesday’s visit, and plan to get out either for a walk, jog or cycle tomorrow if they weather’s nice. The shoes and Forerunner need a dust-off, and the bike just needs a once-over and the tyres to be pumped up. Providing there’s sunshine, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to get out at start on the road to increased fitness again.
Then I’ll come back and watch the London Marathon and dream of entering it someday. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to do it, but I expect I’ll have done the Reading Half Marathon before then as part of the lead up to it, and a lot of 5K (such as the Santa’s Fun Run) before that.
One step at a time…
