Last week I was collared by one of the gym instructors, "you're just the person I need".* He wanted me to sign up to a challenge that's been set across all the council's leisure centres. All I needed to do was agree to try and cover as much of the distance covered by the cyclists in the Tour de France over the same period, using the cardio equipment in the gym. The course is 3,656km. Whoever gets the closest to the distance wins £50 in sports vouchers, three runners up get £25.
For me this is good, I am in one of my gym lulls at the moment, despite an expanding belly I seem to be struggling with the motivation. After 9 years of going to the gym most week nights I am a bit bored of it, fed up of having to suffer this to not get as fat as I once was. Doing this challenge will appeal to my compulsive side and I won't want to miss a regular gym day for the next duration. I won't win, I won't come close to winning. One week (this week), I have to get home to see to the dog so can't spend as long in the gym as I'd like to so that's a fair few kilometres knocked off my distance. The other reason is that while I was being coerced into this, a man standing next to me told me not to bother because he was definitely going to win. I have a distinct feeling that he is correct, he is going to win this by a mile, or a lot of miles, actually.
The challenge started on Saturday, I don't go to the gym at the weekends (unless I'm in a bad way with my mind) so I started on Monday, I've lost two days already. It doesn't matter, two days won't make a difference because Mr Competitive has got this. On Monday I covered 12km, not great but not horrendous. Well, it was pretty bad because the second part of my workout was on the x-trainer, Mr Competitive was on the next machine. He was pedalling away and when he finished, I glanced over to see how far he'd gone. 49.97km. I told you he'd got this.
Oh and don't get me started on that number. He didn't seem bothered but I cannot comprehend how he's stopped at that number. Why not take it to a round 50km? If the machine's gone off, start it up again, do another .03km, get that last bit in. If it was me, I'd have to carry on till 50.05km, but 50km would have done, it's better than 49.97km anyway.
In three weeks time I won't be a winner, I won't even be a runner up, as I've managed, 12km and then 15km over two days this week, but I will have stuck to something for the first time in a while.
In three weeks time I am going to ask Mr Competitive what exactly is a sports voucher.
*he was definitely saying this to everyone who came in that day, the staff at the centre who sign the most people up get a reward
No comments:
Post a Comment