Following yesterday’s failure at getting into the gym, I bit the bullet and upgraded to full, premium, community membership of the local Uni gym. I think that it’s still a bargain, considering that I can get there in 10 minutes in the car (and probably the same on the bike, I should try it sometime).

The day has been insanely busy. After some time Skyping this morning, then visiting the nurse for a checkup, I had to pop into Keytech to help with some IIS stuff, then on to One Stop Hire to see Steve there, then on to Wigan Youth Zone. I had planned to do some crystal reports after picking up the kids at 3:30. Some bits at WYZ meant that we had to arrange for the kids to go to after school club, and I only got back to Ormskirk at around six. All good stuff, but it felt like a packed day.

The visit to the nurse was for a bit of a check-up. As I’m so very nearly 45 I thought it would be a good idea if I have plans of running the Birmingham half marathon.

All the blood measurements in the checkup came back good, with obvious improvements in cholesterol and fat and other stuff I didn’t understand. We were able to pin this squarely on the exercise, so this was brilliant. A little bit of weight loss as well, which always helps. However, it seems that my concerns about breathing (blogs passim) were legit, with my lungs apparently at 50% of their normal capacity. I’ve been prescribed some stuff that I remember from when I was a scrawny asthmatic child. Let’s see how it goes. Another check-up at the end of July to keep an eye on things.

Jude was late home, so by the time we had eaten dinner it was bed time for the kids, and by the time I’d then got changed it was nearly 9pm. As the Edge Hill gym closes at 10pm, I jumped in the car for a quick bit of the training programme.

I got in about 30 minutes: 10 minutes running (one and a bit km, I made a note, but on my sheet there); 2000m on the rowing machine in about 9.30, and then 10 minutes on this summit machine thing which seems to only exist to turn your legs into jelly. By the time I’d done those, along with some administrative stuff at the start around the upgrade and rearranging my weights session, it was time to leave.

Not a big session, but it counts, I think. I used my exciting new inhaler – The Easyhaler – which is weird and feels just wrong, but still… it didn’t feel like it was doing anything, but I was able to breathe quite normally throughout the session, so that seems like an improvement over recent exercising. Roll on day 19.