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November 07 I Get FitYou tube Video to read along with - The brilliant Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull), flute solo.
I went to the gym yesterday, first time for months. I'd noticed I was less fit than previously,and that my stomach was less washboard and more flannel. I hadn't been running for a while either, so I steeled myself and called in after work.
They've done the place up - put in a new studio that seemed to be full of mini trampolines and giant beachballs, and there was a plasma tv mounted on the wall. I wandered over to the new running machines. It was quiet to start with - one person (I was unsure of the sex) appeared to be trying to end its life by running until it dropped - legs pumping, face contorted, sweat pouring, and a ripped young guy invisible under a mop of long hair pounded the rubber at four machines distant. His leg muscles looked like they could withstand the weight of a couple of elephants, and his underarm hair was... dripping. I wondered what on earth they were doing it for - and if I really wanted to join them, but I was here so I stepped on board halfway between the two, selected a 'hills' programme, the speed and level, and started it going. The last time I came they had large tv screens on the wall featuring MTV whether you liked it or not. Now each machine has a mini tv, so I watched the news while pounding the rubber.
Then something unfortunate happened. I'd taken a pair of jogging bottoms to wear, but found on changing, that one of the ties at the top had got lost inside, so that I couldn't pull them tight. Now, as I ran, they slowly inched their way down my arse on an inexorable path to the floor. What to do now? First I tried running in a sort of hula-hooping motion hoping to keep them on, but I got some very odd looks. Next I tried tucking the top down into my undies - which worked! until both garments began a slow and revealing slide floorwards. The only answer was to haul them up and run gripping one side which made me look like a constipated hunchback, or a criminal in a film running from the cops with a gut-shot. The round indeterminate figure to my left was giving me concerned glances, and it was hard to keep balance, so I was glad when my timer ran down and I could do some time on the bikes - sitting was no problem.
By the end of that I realised how unfit I'd become and wandered off to do some bench presses and other such torturous activities before returning to the cross country ski machined thingies, where sure enough, the same problem occured - my arse being slowly revealed to a thrilled public. On this thing I couldn't do my hunchback trick so I hit on the solution of tying the one remaining string to one of the loops I found inside the waistband - the thingies they use to hang the stuff up - and this worked fine - right up until I tried to take them off.
The knot had become positively Gordian in its complexity, and tighter than a ducks rear end, which meant I had to wear them home then take a knife to them in order to free myself and go to my class. I guess if I'm going again, I need to go shopping. And you have to pay to do this! Maybe I'll take up bellringing instead.
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