#oneaday Day 10: A Success

I did it! I got up at a sensible hour rather than 5 minutes before work started, I had a cup of coffee, then I damn well went for a swim. Did 20 lengths at my excruciatingly slow pace (I’ve never claimed to be good at swimming) and came home feeling surprisingly chipper. I hate it when those people who say exercise is good for you are right. But hey. You have to celebrate the small victories on the road to lasting change, or something.

One thing I found less than good about my trip to the pool today was the fact they’ve installed lockers that eat your 10p coins rather than letting you have your coin back when you’re done. This would have been mildly annoying 10-15 years ago, but in an age where hardly anyone carries cash around any more it’s absolutely infuriating. At least it’s only 10p a time rather than a pound.

But I removed that from the equation, as the leisure complex in the town centre that I rather like and have been a member of numerous times in the past was running a very good deal on annual memberships, so I decided to make a proper commitment and signed up for a year of both swimming and gym membership. That gives me maximum flexibility without being beholden to things that have frustrated me in the past, such as the university pool’s schedule and suchlike.

Said centre’s pool is open from first thing in the morning (well, 7am) until mid-afternoon every weekday except Friday, and the gym is just… there. Having free access to both for the next year will be a positive thing, so long as I can motivate myself to actually get down there. And I think, as with anything, it’s just a matter of establishing good habits — a process that starts right now, this morning, with my trip to the pool.

I don’t like being unfit, unhealthy and lazy. In fact, it really sucks. It actively upsets me. But the trouble with being unfit, unhealthy and lazy is that it’s something of a vicious cycle: being unfit, unhealthy and lazy makes you more unfit, unhealthy and lazy, and then because you’re unfit, unhealthy and lazy the prospect of doing something to make you not at least one of those three things often feels like an insurmountable obstacle.

I’m feeling weirdly motivated right now, though. Perhaps I really am on the way back up after a bit of a mental health crash in the last few weeks or so. Here’s hoping I can keep up the momentum and go the distance. I’ll likely use this blog as one means of keeping myself vaguely accountable, so we’ll see how things go.

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1512: Fatigue

I joined the gym again yesterday, and got up early to go this morning. Now I feel like shit. I feel the two things are not coincidental, though the “feeling like shit” part, to be fair, was lingering in the background before the “going to the gym” part, so going to the gym probably did not help matters.

I am in a frustrating situation in that I clearly need to do some exercise — I’ve been feeling super-crappy recently, getting out of breath far too easily, and something I’ve done somewhere along the line feels like it’s knackered my left knee — but actually getting back into a good routine looks like it is going to be difficult. It will, of course, get easier over time assuming I keep it up, but it’s getting that initial burst of motivation going that is going to prove challenging, I feel.

My most positive experience with fitness was back when I worked at the Apple Store in WestQuay here in Southampton, and the gym and pool complex was both practically next door to where I worked, and on the way home. Consequently, it was pretty easy to just drop in, do some exercise either in the gym or the pool, then head home and have my whole evening ahead of me. It got me into good habits and made me feel reasonably good about the effort I was putting in — I’m not sure whether or not it actually helped me lose any weight, but part of it was just the mental wellbeing it brought about. I still wouldn’t have described myself as particularly “fit” but I was certainly a whole lot better than I am now.

The difficulty with being unfit is that it makes the process of actually getting fit infinitely more difficult to get started with. When it’s uncomfortable and painful to engage in exercise, the idea of voluntarily putting myself through that is not at the forefront of my mind. But I need to; hopefully it will be something that gets easier relatively quickly and helps me improve my motivation. Because right now there’s not a lot of it there — though some of that may be due to the fact that I don’t think I’m very well.

Going to get some good rest and then hopefully kick this thing off in earnest at some point in the next few days. I’m looking forward to having a swim, actually; it’s been quite a while since I had a good swim, and while I’m not very good at it — I’m painfully slow, even when doing “fast” strokes — I do find it to be quite a relaxing experience, so that could be the ideal thing to ease myself back into things.

Anyway, for now I’m off to bed. Apologies for the self-pitying nature of today’s post but, eh, you’re probably all used to it by now. G’night.

#oneaday Day 520: The Top 5 Things I Wish You’d Stop Doing In Swimming Pools

I went swimming today having rediscovered it with Andie last weekend. I used to go a lot after work (that long-forgotten concept soon to be reawakened) alternating swim days with gym days, and while I didn’t get “good” as such, I certainly found myself able to swim surprising lengths without too much difficulty — or indeed speed, but that’s beside the point.

Today I managed 1km, which equates to 40 lengths of the pool I was in. I’d got up to being able to do 100 lengths at one point and to be fair, I could have kept going today were it not for the fact I needed to get home and Get Shit Done.

So, in honour of my swimming achievements I’d like to present the Top 5 Things I Wish You’d Stop Doing In Swimming Pools.

Putting on deodorant before getting in the pool

Seriously, Lynx-clad chav boy, who do you think you are impressing by making yourself smell like a gypsy’s jockstrap before jumping in the pool? You’ll only stink of chlorine in approximately 5 minutes anyway, so you might as well not bother, because swimming through the cloud of “aromatic” chemicals emanating from your person as they rinse off your hairless body under the water is anything but pleasant.

Finding your kids splashing people in the face amusing

Yes, a kid learning to swim is probably very exciting for a parent, but when some 6-year old git splashes me in the face obviously deliberately and you sit there laughing at him, that’s giving him positive reinforcement and unspoken permission to do it again. I would very much like it if he didn’t do it again, thanks, because it went up my nose and made me cough, and it also made me hate him, and you.

Prancing around naked in the changing room

Yes, I am aware that you need to get naked in order to get changed to go swimming. But do you have to be naked for quite so long and towel-dry your testicles quite so enthusiastically? And if your friend is with you, don’t you find it a little weird to stand there talking to him with your cock hanging out? If you weren’t in a swimming pool changing room you wouldn’t do it, would you? If you were both in your bedroom or living room it would be a bit weird, wouldn’t it? Unless, of course, there’s some sort of homoerotic tension between the two of you, in which case you should hurry up and consummate your love elsewhere and stop inflicting sexual tension on the rest of the pool’s visitors.

Getting pissy with people in the slow lane

I swim slowly, as do numerous other people. We don’t have a “super-slow” lane to downgrade ourselves to. You, however, have a “medium” lane which you can upgrade yourself to. Please use it. I bet you walk on the left on Underground escalators, too.

Being there

Frankly, I like the pool better when it’s just me (and maybe one companion) there. Kindly bugger off out of my way and, preferably, the pool so that I can enjoy the time in the pool I have paid for. Sure, you may have paid for it too, but I am grumpier than you. Go and see your naked friends in the changing room.