Tales from the gym

After a 3 month-plus hiatus, I returned to the gym, huffing and puffing, on Monday night. Having barely recovered from a two week long bronchitis and flu, I might have been a bit over-zealous as I almost passed out on the bike. But determined as I am, I stuck to my guns and completed a 40 minute workout, ran for my life in the pitch dark back home while the cold air burned my lungs and did weights and stretched for another 40 minutes.

While at the gym, I realised why I enjoy going there so much. Not only for the great sudden burst of energy and all-round feeling you get after a good workout, but also for all the weird and wonderful characters that you come across there. Even after my long absence from the gym, I saw that not much had changed since then. The energetic masses, from all walks of life, were there to work off their winter indulgences, pretty much like I was.

You have the hot studs (mainly the gym instructors) who pull back their shoulders and walk around like they own the place – I still cant help staring and drooling. They mainly hang around the circuit as doing cardio is almost beneath them.

Then you have the pretty, fragile Barbies who barely break a sweat so as not to pull a hair out of place or ruin their label workout outfits. But then again, they don’t really need to exercise, do they?

The ones that really make me laugh though, are the trolls and freaks. Which hole they crawled out of, I don’t know. These people certainly are not worried about their appearances and would make Vernon Koekemoer’s wardrobe look like Armani. Picture neon gym shorts in all sorts of bright, beautiful colours, thick striped baggy pyjama pants, oversized tank tops and those stupid boxing championship belts (someone loves to show off).

So yeah, liquorice all sorts at the gym. Now I am contemplating whether I should get off my lazy ass today and make another round trip over there. Having stuffed my face with sweet delights at work, maybe I should?