First gym trip of 2009..and it's just as pants as in 2008

I left the office with my gym bud Shiana just before 6 this evening, we got to the gym at around 6.20 (after getting the bus down Oxford Street...why walk?) when we got there it would appear that the whole of London has had the same (un-imaginative) new years resolution to "get fit in 2009 and join a gym"....my frigin gym!

I joined back in July of 2008 and if I'm perfectly honest I can't wait until my contract finishes! I used to love it, got a buzz going, worked up a sweat...now it is nothing but a pain in my slightly more toned arse. My original mission was to build and tone up, now my mission is to make sure I turn up so the money coming out of my account every month is not wasted.

The first thing that you notice when you enter my gym is the smell, I wont describe it but I'm sure you can use your imagination. I go into the changing rooms...nice...fat hairy sweaty men..and they're naked...HOT! I get changed avoiding eye contact with everyone (the place is quite near gay soho and cruising in gym lockerooms is not my thing). I get out into the main gym area (quickly)...some of the machines aren't working, some of them are too sweaty to even think about sitting down at and some I don't even know how to use and the sad thing is I have no desire to even learn.

Shiana and I always do the same routine, perhaps that's the problem? We do 10 minutes on the bike to warm up. There are two types of bikes, the normal ones and then the "disabled" ones...we use the latter. After that we do 20 minutes on the cross trainer, then I do some pectoral weights for a bit whilst Shiana holds my ipod, then we do 20 minutes running on the treadmill and then 5 minutes on the bikes again to warm down, or should that be cool down?...and that's our lot, change and then were out of there. I've always wanted to go and use the free-weights in the corner near the changing rooms but I've since nicknamed this area "muscle beach" and well...if you're not muscly I get the impression you have no right to be there.

See, even reading that back fills me with dread, it's a similar feeling to that which I used to get before PE and swimming lessons at school and this time no "asthma attack" is going to save me! I wish I enjoyed it, I really do...I just don't, along with saving and driving it just doesn't interest me.

I mustn't be entirely negative there are some benefits to the place, these I repeat in my head over and over again as I'm "working out"...firstly Shiana and I do have a laugh and it's good to spend time with my work-wife out of work. It stops me going out on the town thus giving my body and my wallet a break. The whole gym concept is, whether I see it or not, helping my body and general fitness levels which I'm told is good. The Limeade from the drinks machine is first class and finally there are some really funny characters who I think I would miss if we didn't go.

Oh our fellow gym members - There's Stomper, who (as his name would suggest) could do with being a little more dainty on the ol' running machine and then there is the newly discovered "Nuttela" so called for the fact that she is a complete nutcase, I don't mean that in a nasty way she genuinely is a bit of a fruit loop...her running machine is always too fast and the incline always too high which just means she looks like she is running up a mountain being chased by some mountain goat, no, not running...stomping, she doesn't run, she kinda stomps and her fringe gets in her face and she talks to herself...no really, we've heard her giving herself pep talks "come on...you can do it! come on!".

I thought about it today actually, Nuttela might be a little odd but she is certainly getting more out of this experience than I am...perhaps I should hire her as a personal trainer? I'll try and stick to my new years resolutions and visit the gym at least twice a week but when July rocks up I am outta there!