In my mid-30s, it became apparent to me that I ought to start doing some proper exercise. I'd just quit smoking (how many times is that...?) and put on a bit of weight (10kgs, if I'm honest) and I figured that if I didn't do something about it I would turn into one of those couch potatoes whose only possibility to lose those kilograms was to not have the energy to go to the kitchen to find something to eat.
So I joined a health club. It was called Renaissance, which seemed fitting, and on joining I received a white, eponymously monogrammed, towelling bathrobe. I bought myself a few things to wear in the gym and threw myself into a routine that sent me off there three lunchtimes a week. Over the next few months, I sweated on a rowing machine, on a stepper, and on the bikes. I descended to the weights room when there was nobody else there to witness the ridiculously low weights on which I started out, I eyed the treadmills with a mixture of apprehension and anticipation for the day when I would feel comfortable getting onto one and passing twenty minutes or more running. I had never been able to run any distance - to the point where one morning in the past I distinctly remembered waking after a dream in which I was running a few miles and thinking "wow, if only that was real".
One of my work colleagues had suggested that I might start to think about a half-marathon that was happening in a few months. So one day I decided to try out the treadmill. I started by walking five minutes and then jogging one, then walking four and jogging two, then half and half, until eventually I could jog for six minutes at about 10kph. And that meant I could jog a kilometre. After that, I raised it to ten, fifteen and then, twenty minutes. It didn't take that long to get there, maybe three weeks or so, and once I could do that, I let myself loose on the roads around my house. To start with, I got a lift up to the top of the moors, and then followed a three-mile path downhill back home. Then I tried doing the same distance on the flat. The next village to mine was three miles away, and it wasn't too long before I could get there in half an hour, and walk back. A few weeks later, I could do seven miles, starting and finishing at my house, and taking in a few hills on the way. Success!
And then, I stopped. Someone I knew, the same age as me, dropped dead of a brain haemorrhage. It occured to me that I was maybe pushing myself too hard. I had become accustomed to running seven miles, but for a half-marathon I needed to run thirteen. I didn't really like running, and I started to wonder whether the exercise was actually making me fitter, or whether it was just making me less aware the pain of exerting myself. The question nagged at me. Probably a bit of both, I decided in the end, but having started to feel some discomfort in my shins, I resolved to give up the running and to use my bike instead. I also stopped running on the treadmills at the gym, and opted for the cross-trainer. No impact on my bones and joints, and some serious calorie-burning. After a few months, I could burn 900 calories in half an hour. A mile from my house, there was a road that climbed 1000 feet in less than a mile. Parts of it were a one in three gradient. My record was getting to the top on my bike only stopping once, but by the time I got there my pulse was doing about 170, and that was probably too much. I was, by then, pushing 40.
I generally started work around 8.30, and as the gym opened at 7. I found that I could get up at 6, get to the gym when it opened at 7, do 45 minutes of hard graft on the cv machines, a quick turn in the steam room, a jacuzzi at 8, some toast and marmalade at 8.15 and in the office at my usual time. I slid into a routine of doing that three times a week, and two lunchtimes spent doing weights. Sometimes I went to the gym twice in the same day. The endorphins were oozing around my body - it was as addictive as eating chillies or, dare I say it, smoking. For the first time in my life I was really fit, and I loved the feeling of being alive and aware, and I loved looking at myself in the mirror in the changing rooms and seeing the difference I had made to myself. It went on like that for a few years.
And then, big change. I moved to London to work, and the only gyms I could find were so busy that you couldn't count on getting on the machine that you wanted, or even on there being a space in the changing room to hang your clothes. And instead of the changing room smelling of the eucalyptus from the steam room, it smelt of sweat and unclean bodies. I gave up.
In the twelve years or so that have passed since then, despite a fair bit of relaxed cycling, my shoulders have grown narrower, my thighs and calves are no longer rock hard, my resting pulse has gone up from 45 to nearer 60. I'm also 55 years old, and I weigh a few kgs less than I did back then. I walk a fair bit, mostly in London, but my bike hasn't come out of the garage for about a year now. I feel a crossroads coming. Am I going to start again, when I have the time (which won't be too long now) or am I going to grow old gracefully and contentrate on the cerebral and the artistic, rather than the corporeal?
Truth is, there's nothing I like more than the feeling of being out on my bike, meandering along some country lane, with the countryside around me. It makes me feel like I'm a part of me, rather than being someone who looks on and criticises. This week, a colleague of mine told me that after a week in the US, and then three days of having to take aeroplanes to more local meetings around the UK, he had to go out and ride a few hours on his bike to get his composure and equilibrium back. Something in me empathised with him - maybe the bug is still there.
Maybe I'll start tomorrow, but for the moment, I'm too comfortable sitting in this chair and letting the world go by.
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