So Charlie Brooker has come out.
As a runner.
From the tone of his confession, I think he would have been less embarrassed to have come out as a horse murderer, sperm stealer or Tory politician.
It sounds like he used the Couch to 5K program (or a version of it) which is particularly impressive given that although this program starts off very gently, it then ramps up considerably at around week 4. At least that’s the point at which I’ve always had to abandon it.
This year I’ve had to get my head round the fact that at 42 I’m often the oldest person in my gym classes by quite some way. The flip side to this is that when the 20-somethings peg out and I keep going, it feels like a mini-victory. I think this must be why so many people around my age take up running or cycling- it’s a gym class of one, where you are always the youngest and fittest.
This weekend A Child spat me a gobbet of pre-teen angst: You care more about going to the gym than you do about me! because I had the audacity to go to a Sunday afternoon BodyCombat class. Right now I’m going to lots of gym classes because my annual gym challenge is in its final phase and I need to do about 30 more classes to hit my target of 150 for the year. Easier said than done. So why bother?
- I would like to be healthy and alive for as long as possible
- The older I get, the more of a challenge that is
- I want to show my children that activity isn’t somthing that stops when the bell rings at the end of P.E. class
- It keeps me calm and (slightly) less likely to shout at people
- I get my best ideas when I’m exercising. (Admittedly, going to the gym tends to squeeze out the time to execute these ideas, but that’ll all change once my campaign to legalise 30 hour days gets going).
So all in all I think I go to the gym because I care about my children, not instead of. Now, how can I get them to believe that?
image credit: kevin dooley