Here we are, Friday morning, and I’ve just finished in the gym.
It’s brightening up now. Blue sky, sun out. Quite different from last night, which was all howling wind, rain, thunder and lightning.
As for the gym, I woke up this morning feeling oddly apprehensive about going. They’ve refurbished it, and I realised I felt a bit like I did back at the start of this whole experiment: slightly intimidated and a bit overwhelmed.
They’ve been posting photos of the refurbishment on Instagram, and I couldn’t see a rowing machine anywhere. That bothered me more than I expected, because the rower has always been my safe zone in any gym. I know how to use it, I know what I’m doing on it, and after all this time I can hold a decent pace without feeling like an amateur.
So it was a relief to find they do have one, and not just any rower either. A lovely new Concept2. Tucked away, as gym rowers often are, but that’s fine. I know where it is now. It’s smooth and buttery, a lot like mine in the shed.
They’ve done a really good job with the refurbishment. There’s loads of new equipment and a few new machines to discover and have a go on. I tried a couple of them and all in all I’m quite happy with it.
That said, it is still a bit overwhelming in there.
There were a couple of moments where I found myself just standing there, looking around at this forest of strange-looking scaffolding, plates, handles, pads and seats, thinking: what exactly am I supposed to do here?
So I did what made sense. I found a machine I recognised, did a few bits on that, and then gradually started looking at the others.
The interesting thing, though, was this: because the gym only reopened on Saturday and this was only Wednesday, even the well-fit gym goers, the muscular and honed ones, were also wandering around looking at the new machines, reading the instructions, and scratching their heads a bit.
That made me think.
Maybe I’ve been seeing myself as the outsider in this gym community, when actually I’m just another person in the room figuring things out. Maybe the next step is not just learning the machines, but saying hello to people rather than skulking around in my headphones.
Early days. We’ll see.
For now, I’m pleased with the workout, pleased with the new gym, and glad I went.
This is The Sub-7 Experiment.
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