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So, bad news for you lot as blog output is down due to me watching House on the shiny while on the train instead of whittering away on my laptop. Still, good news for me. Now I no longer need to troll around with the Urban Geek Pack I can now take my gym bag to work. This means I have no excuse for not going (of late it’s been cold and dark which saps the will to leave the house once you’re in it. No swimming though. To cold and I have a cold which is never condusive to a dip. At some point I need to sort out a resistance program for my arms. Waving swords about is killing the muscles in them

I’ve been neglecting the gym of late due to various excuses (the ‘doing 60 laps in the pool is causing my eyes to burn for 12 hours afterwards’ has now gone due to some snazzy new goggles with mirrored fonts… I just can’t see anything any more ) , however, I did manage to drag my sorry hide down there on Wednesday (failed to do 60 laps as I’d not been for over a week and was out of practice) and today (where I managed to kill myself on the cross trainer for 35 minutes on quite a high setting… gotta love going to the gym in a shitty mood ). Good thing is I actually miss it if I don’t go and have started looking forward to going and actually actively wanting to go. Down side is the shampoo I’m using (some designer crud that came with the sponge bag I bought for the gym) is not doing nice things for my hair (neither is the chlorine in the pool for that matter) so I need to either find some Head and Shoulders in nice small bottles or, ideally, find something that handles chlorine well in a nice small bottle.

Going to the gym in a bad mood is a bad idea. You don’t so much use the machines as attack them. Your choice of music (or at least my choice of music) turns to the loud and aggressive which will invariable have a very fast tempo, which leads to an extreme workout. Most embarrassing, however, if the fact that this kind of workout seriously elevates your heart rate and if you ignore the little red flashing warning light on the bike you end up with one of the gym staff explaining to you how a heart rate of 220 is not something I want to sustain for too long a period of time and perhaps I might want to ease the cycling back from 180rpm to between 80 and 120.

Still, I managed to get 0.75km done on the crosstrainer, and 7.5km done on the bike. No swimming as I’d run out of drink by that point and was also wanting to leave a little bit of energy for the walk home. I might see if I can do 1km on the crosstrainer and 10km on the bike tomorrow as the pool is causing my eyes to get very sore and the goggles I’ve ordered don’t arrive until next week. If I take it at a slightly more sedate pace I might be able to do it. We’ll see how it goes.

The blog is not the only thing that’s been suffering in the past couple of weeks, I’ve also been rather naughty and missed 2 sessions at the gym. In my defense I did have a really nasty cold on Thursday (not quite man-flu, but getting there) and I’ve been having a ‘do nothing, can’t be arsed to leave the house, let alone do nearly 10Km’s worth of exercise few days’. Last Tuesday I was very good and managed 600m on the cross trainer, 6Km on the bike and 60 lengths in the pool. Sunday I thought I’d just see how far I could go on the bike, which turned out to be not very far…

I was supposed to be seeing my parents on Sunday but I was out Friday night and Saturday night (such a social butterfly, I know) so I got up late. Instead I packed my stuff, made a fresh liter of squash for my drink bottle and headed to the gym. I got changed, plugged in the iPod and headed for the machines. Normally at this point I’d put my drink into the drink holder and get on the machine. Today, for some strange reason, I thought I’d put my drink somewhere near the drink holder and let go, allowing it to fall to the floor and disgorge and entire liter of squash over the floor. Which was nice. I then spent 5 minutes mopping the drink up with my towel (didn’t really do a good job), then another 5 minutes doing a very fast 3km on the bike before leaving with a “Wow, worked up a good sweat there, I meant to do a hard and fast workout and I’m not running away before anyone notices I spilled my drink everywhere” look on my face. To make sure I didn’t bump into anyone else who may have seen me drop my drink I got changed without showering, dashed home, threw my clothes in the wash and showered there. Ah, the shame .
I’m assuming when I go tomorrow the mess will be cleaned up and I can do my normal routine without making a complete arse of myself

OK, so we were a bit naughty on Sunday choosing to just swim rather than doing anything on the machines. That said, I got somewhere between 40 and 50 lengths (810 meters-ish) before I lost out to cramp. The irony was I was going to try and do two very fast lengths, waited for the second hand to hit 12, pushed off as hard as I could… and then got severe cramp in my right leg. Ended up doing the two lengths with one leg (I wasn’t going to let people know I had cramp) at a much slower time than I was hoping for. Also put the kibosh on doing any more.

Today was more productive, managed to seriously up the amount of time on the machines (mainly by not killing myself on the cross trainer in the first 5 minutes - isn’t pacing yourself wonderful ).

Todays stats are:

Cross Trainer: 0.5km
Bike: 5km (+2km)
Pool: 50 lengths  (900m - +20 lengths)

Since everyone has been pointing out how crap the figures my scales give me are we’ll stick to just weight:  84.2Kg (down 1.7Kg )

Right, second trip to the Gym [pronounced all night gime, with a hard g like in grime. Don't ask :D]. Forgot to mention that they also don’t have one of those spinny thing that you can use to dry your trunks. I was really spoiled at my last place Anyway:

Cross Trainer: 0.5km (which nearly killed me, must be tired)
Bike: 3km
Pool: 30 lengths (540m)

And, just to prove this is doing me good:

Weight: 85.0Kg (down 0.9Kg)
Body Fat: 22.3% (down 0.7%)
Body Water: 56.1% (down 0.1%)
Basal Metabolic Rate: 1922 Calories (down 16)
Muscle Mass: 41.2% (up 0.2%)

So there we have it, an effect… or my scales are just really inaccurate For those who work in old money: 85kg is 13.4 stone or 187.4 pounds

My shoulders are killing me. Not used to this exercise lark. Anyone out there any good at massage and in central london today?

OK, so first visit which meant I was taking it easy as I get back into the whole exercise thing. I also need to strengthen my fingers. I have a very powerful breaststroke stroke (I am actually a bloody good swimmer, even if I do say so myself) so my fingers are facing a lot of resistance against the water. It was only 150 meters before they started to ache. You’d think they’d be stronger with the amount of typing I do. Plan is to increase the amount done by half a kilometer/5 lengths per week (well, 4 then 6 so I can get out the side the changing room is on ). Not sure what I’ll stop at, depends on time, but possibly something like 2km on the cross trainer, 10km on the bike and 100 lengths in the pool, or whatever I can fit into about 2 hours. So, currently we stand at:

Cross Trainer: 0.5km
Bike: 3km
Pool: 30 lengths (540m)

And, just to prove this is doing me good:

Weight: 85.9Kg
Body Fat: 23%
Body Water: 56.2%
Basal Metabolic Rate: 1938 Calories
Muscle Mass: 41%

Hopefully these numbers will move in the relevant directions (and no, I don’t know why I’m 120.2% fat, water and muscle ).

So having been to my new gym to workout I can say I was spoiled at my last one (but I did pay a hell of a lot for the privilege) . The machines in the gym aren’t quite as good as I am used to with the displays being slightly more simplistic and cycling through the relevant information instead of being able to show it all at once, there are also less choices of resistance level and they don’t seem to have the number of programs available. There are also far fewer machines which will make life difficult when it gets busy. Still, it’ll do.

The pool itself is OK, if a bit short (again, used to a 25 meter pool) but the whirlpool spa thingy is a bit pants. Its not very warm and it actually sprays cold water in through small jets round your legs which is really weird. Does mean that the lack of a plunge pool is less of an issue (I used to love sitting in the seriously hot whirlpool spa for 5 minutes then jump in the ice cold plunge pool, lather, rince repeat).

The showers suck. They are not very powerful and they are the sort where you push the button and get 20 seconds of water. Those will long hair especially will appreciate that this is a bitch when you are half way through shampooing/rinsing your hair as when the water stops there is much groping to find the button to start the water again.

Anyway, enough of the moaning, its going to cost me less than £1/day to go for the year (assuming I go at least twice a week in the first month) which would work out at £3.50ish per visit (again assuming twice a week) which is cheaper than most pools.

To ensure I actually go I’m going to post my progress (as in when I go and how much I do) here. The reasons [read excuses] why I didn’t go to my last gym as much no longer apply so hopefully I’ll keep this up. Feel free to take the piss if I don’t go enough