After a couple of years as a gym member, my attendance has declined from around 5 days a week at the peak, to once or twice a week if I’m lucky. Part of this is my fault, a lot of it is out of my control.
My best time for gymming it is directly after work. I used to go Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays, augmented by Saturday morning and maybe Sunday or Thursday, depending on how stiff I was after football on a Wednesday. However as the kids get older and do more stuff, I’ve now had to scrub Monday and Tuesday from the list as Monday is drumming (don’t get back home and the kids to bed until around 8ish), Tuesday is Brownies (drop off at 6pm, pick up at 7:15pm) and getting up before swimming on a Sunday isn’t excessively practical if I want to let wifey have a run (she’s in training for a 10K).
As the gym is local authority owned, and I get a discount from the local Chamber of Commerce, it’s not excessively expensive for our area (30 something quid a month against £74 at the Nuffield Health gym) but it’s reached the point where it’s not worth it, so I’m cancelling my membership. I’ve gone out and had my gait re-assessed and bought a pair of Brooks Men’s Ravenna 7s in an extra wide fitting, size 12. My left foot pronates so badly it’s a miracle I’ve not got orthopaedic inserts apparently. RunKeeper is on my phone, my Withings Ox Pulse is charged up and I’m ready to hit the roads with a C25K.
Fingers crossed I can improve on my extraordinarily pathetic 8 minutes per KM that I managed on my first run. I had a lot of shin pain, so I obviously need to do some better warm ups. Hopefully it’s not an issue caused by pounding the astroturf in a cheapo pair of astro trainers. Most of my gym work was cross trainer based to reduce the impact on my knees but since I’m seeing a rheumatologist next month, I thought I’d chance it.