Fit people still die, they just die without sense or reason.
Gym misery continues apace - while Valentine swans about eating canapés with chirpy ex girl-groupers, I’ve been mastering running towards nowhere specific without falling flat on my face. When permitted the grace of standing still I’ve been persuaded into doing something called dead lifts (obviously named for the feeling you get after doing them). When I’m permitted to eat, I have to eat things that I used to mock Ellie for eating. Honestly, what the fuck is hommous? I’ve never been so miserable in my entire life.
Then, as if the generic, non-specific torture of the general floor wasn’t enough by way of humiliation, my trainer has insisted that I take group classes in between torture sessions. Because the gym I’ve joined is connected to Cambridge, I’m doing these classes with twenty something children in nipple baring vests who give me sideways glances full of horrified pity. They ride fixed gear bicycles and meet in the adjacent coffee shop afterwards for a green juice and rollie cigarette after each session. They don’t know how lucky they are. By the time I’ve emerged from that hell of salty exertion and disinfected rubber floors, I’m panting so hard that I’m afraid I’ll breathe in any cigarette whole. No one at the gym has anything approaching hips, except for me. I’ve spent more in the dairy section of Waitrose than these people have paid for their membership. Or maybe not. Group classes are like taking out a mortgage. At first you think it will be cheap, but then you see the direct debit records. Nobody talks about the cost.
The instructor is a six foot glistening freak with lines on his body that are alien to most people and a pair of the deadest eyes I've ever seen. Feel the burn, he says. I want to set him on fire.
I remind myself that this is for a reason.
The reward is worth the sacrifice.
Wipe the bench down and repeat.
Then, as if the generic, non-specific torture of the general floor wasn’t enough by way of humiliation, my trainer has insisted that I take group classes in between torture sessions. Because the gym I’ve joined is connected to Cambridge, I’m doing these classes with twenty something children in nipple baring vests who give me sideways glances full of horrified pity. They ride fixed gear bicycles and meet in the adjacent coffee shop afterwards for a green juice and rollie cigarette after each session. They don’t know how lucky they are. By the time I’ve emerged from that hell of salty exertion and disinfected rubber floors, I’m panting so hard that I’m afraid I’ll breathe in any cigarette whole. No one at the gym has anything approaching hips, except for me. I’ve spent more in the dairy section of Waitrose than these people have paid for their membership. Or maybe not. Group classes are like taking out a mortgage. At first you think it will be cheap, but then you see the direct debit records. Nobody talks about the cost.
The instructor is a six foot glistening freak with lines on his body that are alien to most people and a pair of the deadest eyes I've ever seen. Feel the burn, he says. I want to set him on fire.
I remind myself that this is for a reason.
The reward is worth the sacrifice.
Wipe the bench down and repeat.