Shimmy shimmy flapjack

Because we were having a long day after an early start at uni yesterday, I’d booked the lunchtime spin class instead of my usual morning one as I wasn’t sure I would be up early enough. As it happened, I was up at a respectable hour (a respectable hour for a student – in fact, a shockingly early time for a student – anyway) and I could have made the earlier class. Determined not to waste the morning checking emails and talking to people on Facebook and Twitter, I fired up my Freedom software (the best piece of software ever for procrastinators) and told it to disconnect from the internet for two hours (by which time I’d be safely in the gym) and settled down to read Persuasion by Jane Austen which our fiction tutor is forcing us to read (I only got about a third of the way through Pride and Prejudice before chucking it in the bin turning off my Kindle).

While I was reading, the postman turned up bearing oaty gifts.

These flapjacks are from Travelling Hopefully. Travelling Hopefully makes the most delicious, moist, chewy and buttery flapjacks in the world ever. Fuck ‘unofficial Janathon training fuel’, I am declaring these compulsory!

Also in the post was the DVD of School of Rock which we were supposed to watch during the Christmas holidays as part of our drama homework, but I forgot about it until a few days before we were going back. (Our non-fiction tutor will almost undoubtedly ask us what we read over the holidays. I’m not sure my answer of ‘wine labels, mostly’ will be considered an acceptable response.)

The third package in the post was shoebox shaped and I got excited thinking it was a pair of running shoes that I’d ordered and forgotten about but then I saw that it wasn’t addressed to me. Bah.

Thankfully, opening the post didn’t give me any time to get back to Jane Flipping Boring as Hell Austen and I set off for the gym (which I can assure you that – unlike the gym featured on Channel 4’s The Fat Fighters – is not full of 6ft females with perfect skin and 22 inch waists).

I warmed up by doing 20 minutes on the rowing machine and 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer, then headed off for the spin class. I didn’t know who was doing the class today and hoped it wasn’t the shimmy shimmy clap clap instructor. Well, yes, of course, the shimmy shimmy clap clap instructor came along to take the class. And what a packed class it was. Every single bike was used. I’ve never seen a spin class so busy. Did everyone take the day off work today because it was unseasonably sunny? And then use that day off to go to the gym where the sun doesn’t shine? Possibly, I wouldn’t put anything past people in Ashford (I told my new tutor yesterday I lived in Ashford and she wrinkled her nose).

And so the class shimmied and clapped and dipped and dived and stood up and sat down and leaned from side to side, while I only took part in the sitting down and standing up bit. I am only able to follow the body pump instructor because it involves either doing things with your arms or doing things with your legs but not both at the same time. I am not cut out for bicycle aerobics. I am especially not cut out for waving my gym towel round my head and saying ‘woo’.

I decided to ignore all the shimmying and clapping and just do my own thing and eventually it was all over and I went to the changing rooms and there was a girl in front of me also going in and she held the door open for me and I said thank you and then I thought oh no, there are two more doors coming up in quick succession, what’s the etiquette if someone holds open three doors for you in the same number of seconds? Do you say thank you three times, or is saying it only the first time adequate manners and the other two go without saying? Because I’d already said thank you at the first door, I said ‘ta’ at the second door, then smiled at her at the third door and thought that was probably polite enough and I don’t think I ever thought what a flipping minefield manners are before.

Tomorrow’s exercise was going to be a run. Then I texted a friend to ask that as we were going to see each other on Friday, shall we postpone our lunch tomorrow and she said we were supposed to be meeting next week. (Each time I text her to see what time we’re meeting, she tells me I’ve got the week wrong and it’s the week after we’re meeting. I think we need to clarify what ‘next [weekday]’ means. Just as well I am one of life’s confirmers and I confirm any arrangements to meet up nearly every day leading up to the arranged (or what I think is the arranged) date). Anyway, after telling me that I’d got the date wrong, she reminded me that I was going to cycle to uni on Thursdays and now I could cycle this week after all. But I’d decided on a run and I can’t do both and although I had planned on cycling to uni on Thursdays I hadn’t planned to this week and I don’t like changing what I’ve arranged in my head to do. But I have got Paddock Wood Half coming up and I need to train for that and I haven’t run at all this week, so maybe running would be the best thing.

And if you’re wondering why this blog post is so long, it’s because our fiction tutor told us we must write 1000 words a day, that’s why.

Stats
Cycling: 5 miles
Rowing machine: 20 minutes
Elliptical-trainer: 20 minutes
Spin class: 45 minutes
Oaty gifts of flapjacks: 1
School of Rock DVDs: 1
Packages not for me: 1
Instructors waving gym towels round their heads saying ‘woo’: 1
Words: 1000