The gym session from hell

I'm a little smaller than I used to be. There's a pool of molten Susie lying on the floor of my local gym. Man it was hot!

I've spent the last 3 days in the gym. No, I didn't take my sleeping bag. As a result of injury I've been keeping things low impact, but trying to maintain my training effort.

After being concerned I'd done something quite serious to my soleus on Tuesday night - I was limping on Wednesday - things have turned out quite well. I had some physio on Thursday and things settled down almost immediately. I had a strained soleus tendon, but nothing appeared torn.

To play it safe, after resting Wednesday and Thursday, I decided to do my training in the gym for a few days. Friday's cross trainer session went well - no pain - so I did almost my normal Saturday gym session with 3 miles of treadmill - again no pain.

I had then felt that maybe I was OK to resume on the road, but realised a long Sunday run might be a little much with a dodgy tendon. The plan then was to do a long gym session, with treadmill running interspersed with short sessions of cross trainer and bike. The hope was that by keeping my heart rate up for over 2 hours, then I'd get the training benefit of a normal long run.

My mega session didn't start well when I had to queue for ages for the loos! I was queuing behind what looked like the Junior Priscilla Queen of the Desert Fan Club. Either there was a dance competition on in the main hall, or it was a beauty pageant for young drag queens (hmm, maybe they were boys?). I assume they had some sort of sponsorship deal with Max Factor. Don't their mothers realise they wouldn't look out of place in a seedy drag bar in Soho?

When I finally got in the gym I got a shock. It was packed. No treadmills or cross trainers available! The curse of the post Xmas rush. Maybe I'm a fitness fascist, but it was rather bizarre that on the 10 treadmills not one person was running! Are these people so unfit that a few minutes of walking is exercise? Harumph!

As I stood surveying the scene, a cross trainer became available so I grabbed it quickly. After 10mins, glancing over my shoulder I saw a spare treadmill, so quickly swapped.

Fortunately, with the time approaching lunch time, the festival of flesh decided that they had been away from food too long and the gym cleared. I was able then to choose the pattern of my session for myself. God it was hot though! With the extra bodies it was noticeably hotter than normal.

In all I had a total of 2 hours 25 mins of continuous aerobic work: 10mins cross trainer, 3 miles treadie, 10mins cross trainer, 2.5 miles treadie, 10mins bike, 2 miles treadie, 10mins bike, 1.5 miles treadie plus a treadie cool down. My HR averaged 119bpm or 68%maxHR. I'm counting this as the equivalent of a 14mile run, although in terms of calories burnt it was nearer 15miles. Result!