Driving to the gym

I go to the gym a lot. A person who bakes as much as I do really needs to, you're probably thinking. In fact I eat a fraction of what I bake. I live with people who fall on it like wolves so most days it's hard to get a look in. I get most of my share in through the tasting of the various bits and pieces as I create it. But I create a lot, so a lot of tasting goes on, so yes you're right, without regular gym visits I probably would be the size of two buses. I also go to the gym for my ongoing physiotherapy challenge. It is a source of constant astonishment to me just how bloody long it takes to regain your body's equilibrium after an accident or an operation (I have had both). My left calf is still only two thirds the size of my right. This is great progress - when I began physiotherapy after I had major reconstructive surgery on my left foot, my calf looked like it belonged to the body of someone close to starvation. But it's been over a year and I'm still not where I was. Plus my new toe stubbornly refuses to activate itself so I can't stand on my toes on my left leg only, which might seem like a pointless exercise and therefore not much worth striving for. But the ability to stand on your toes speaks to muscle strength, stability and flexibility, all things I am going to really wish I had when I hit my older age. And finally I go to the gym because it makes me feel better. All those endorphins manage to kick in even when I am exercising among people younger, fitter, thinner than me, or all three. I have recently changed gyms, finally so disgusted with the innate scuzziness of the one I have been attending for years principally because it is cheaper than the others, but finally realised cheap does not equal value when half the machines don't work, there are buckets all over the show to trip over because the ceiling leaks in fifteen different places, the showers are so disgusting they probably harbour more bacteria than a science lab, and the clientele - and the staff - are so miserable that your endorphins go on strike in protest - anyway, the new (sleeker, more expensive, but much better equipped and staffed) gym can be reached through a river walk which means I can cycle there. I could always cycle to the other one but it meant braving busy roads and since I am a leisure cyclist, busy roads means road rage, so I used to walk. Not drive. Walk. Why do people drive to the gym?  I mean, people who live walking distance away, drive to the gym, get out, go up to the cardiovascular area, and then walk on the treadmill for 15 minutes to warm up. Why do that when you could get your warm up by walking to the gym in the first place? And be in the fresh air? I love my cycle route to the gym. If I can muster the energy to go first thing, then I hear birdsong all the way there until I hit the high road before I reach the fitness centre. It does the soul good. And so does the feeling of arriving with numb hamstrings at the gym having toiled up the last hilly 20 metres to chain up my bike next to all those cars which have expended so much in petrol and no little in physical energy. My warm up has been done (in fact, most of my work out has probably been done) in my bike ride, and I can crack straight on with my weight training or whatever my latest craze is. I did do a spin class twice but the second time I arrived on my bike and a fellow punter asked me what I was planning on doing at the gym. Spin, I told him. He looked at me and said, so you've cycled to the gym so you can do a cycling class? and guffaws in my face. Point taken. But still, I feel endlessly smug weaving my way through the drivers hunting down an elusive parking space at peak workout time. And smug I stayed until this morning's expedition, when, emerging from the river path into the road, I hear a roar behind me and sense that an enormous vehicle is comiing up behind me at speed. I hug the side of  the road as much as possible but the vehicle does not pass me. It honks, and the sound is like an aeroplane breaking the sound barrier. I keep my cool, maintain my speed, and keep to the side of the road, but the vehicle stays right up behind me, honking every few seconds, and I realise the driver is doing this deliberately to get me off the road. I stay my ground, reach the roundabout, sail round it, get to the turnoff for my gym, take it, and stop. The vehicle roars past me, the driver laughing and waving. It is a huge removal lorry. I am too enraged to do the sensible thing and take the licence plate number down. All I can think of is, ah. That is why people take their cycling exercise in the gym.