GETTING BACK INTO IT

I joined a small fitness gym yesterday in the small shopping area close to home.
Since damaging my knee last year I haven't been doing as much exercise as before having to curtail the hill climbing of Mount Manaia and Mount Aubrey which I used to do regularly .

Mount Manaia

Mount Aubrey

I've been noticing the decline of my fitness even though I still walk the bush tracks and play tennis twice a week. This was underscored by The Old Girl's new fitness regimen after having had her hip replacement last year. She's back into running and swimming and quite frankly is leaving me behind. Something had to be done.

The cost of the gym is $15 a week which, annualised ($780) is way more than the golf membership but this gym has a flexible payment arrangement with no lock-in contracts. I can pay weekly or monthly and cancel out at any time. If I find it doesn't suit I'll dump it without still having had a huge layout of spondoolaks (a greek name for money that my dad and other soldiers from WW2 brought back home with them, along with, Richard - 'date' being a slang term for bottom). If I do use the gym regularly then $780 is a good investment in health.

I went along today after tennis and spent about 50 minutes doing cardio (bike, walking machine and rowing machine), weight machines and free weights. I took it easy so as not to damage anything (me not the gym equipment) as it's over two years since I was last in a gym in York. I'll build up to an hour or an hour and a half and plan to do this at least 3 times a week.

Not this one but similar

It's nice and casual at this gym and I was given a swipe key to use to come and go 24 hours / 7 days a week which suits me fine. I won't attend formal fitness classes as, like with golf, I prefer to just do my own thing when I want. When I went today at about 11.30 I was the only one there and it was good just pottering about familiarising myself with the equipment. It was nice and peaceful until midday when a woman came in and immediately turned on the music machine, blasting out The Police greatest hits.

This reminded me of some hassles I had in the gym in the condo we lived in when we were in Toronto where gym-bunnies would turn on televisions at ear shattering volumes - see:

GYM ETIQUETTE

Why do people do this? She could see that I was there exercising away in peace and quiet yet still felt compelled to make a bloody annoying racket. I looked at her:

This wasn't her

and was just about to ask her to turn down her racket when thankfully the CD corrupted and the system turned itself off.

RACKET




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