A week later, a load of stretches and a complete lack of running, even in this glorious weather we’ve been having. Instead I stretch. I stretch for England. I stretch like Stretch Armstrong. Once you sneak it into the daily routine, it’s not as hard although I’d be lying if I said it was a great alternative to running. Hard to say if it’s working to be honest, but then I won’t know until I run again. Now I’m into the zone of having done a week, I may as well do another 2 to make sure I don’t mess the hip up worse than before.
So, against all my usual prejudices, I went and joined a Virgin Health gym on a rolling monthly contract. So now during the week I can go and play with their machines. It was actually quite different to go to a gym when you’re in a half decent state of fitness. Jumped on the indoor bike and the cross trainer thing, and went into over an hour of high volume exercise, throwing around sweat, scaring people away. Nice.
Hasn’t change my prejudice though. Once I can start running again, I will cancel the gym membership. There’s just something not right with exercising indoors, no wind/sun/rain/feedback/views, just a large number of rows of different machines with robots going through the motions. Don’t think I saw anyone smile. Still… it’s a mean to an end for me right now.
