Gyms - what strange places they are

Tom's work is participating in one of those corporate health challenge things - fair enough, it is a health related industry - and even though he is on leave Tom feels the need to contribute to his team's daily performance, especially as they are being hammered by the far more sporty team in the organisation. So he has been duly recording his daily steps on his phone to contribute his bit to the corporate good. Now we are in Oman the oppressive heat has restricted his opportunity to build up his step count so he decided to head to the hotel gym. And I thought I would tag along.  Stop laughing ! I have been to a gym before - at least once ! In fact I remember joining the gym at work while still working at Veteran's Affairs so it must have been soon after Alistair was born and I guess I thought I would get into shape. I remember approaching the whole idea very seriously because I bought a lovely backpack for the occasion. It was a really nice backpack, but I think I only went to the gym about twice and I am not sure what happened to it.

Don't be fooled by this lush looking date palm garden oasis, it is really hot out there.

When travelling for work I have looked at the gyms at the hotels and thought a bit of exercise would be a beneficial, and then very quickly come to my senses. However, I thought a trip to the gym would be a nice supplement to my 5 day detox in Oman and going with Tom meant I had someone to explain how all the equipment worked. Have you been in a gym lately ? It is all screens and buttons, just like a NASA space station. Tom set me on a treadmill at a gentle walking pace and thanks to Alistair who downloaded a Muse CD for me sometime back I had some good anthemic rock to tread away to. I cranked it up a bit and got very excited expecting the weight would be just dropping off me. You can imagine my disappointment to find the machine telling me that after 30 minutes I had expended a mere 100 calories. What a waste of a half hour. I can burn the same amount of energy doing the vacuuming and the mopping, and have something to show for it at the end of that time. It just goes to prove that gyms are tosh and confirms what I have always said: if you feel the need to sweat then have a hot bath. 

The machine not only kept me informed of my calorie burn but also my heart rate. When it was happy with the heart-beats-per-minute the machine lit up with an encouraging green heart. Needless to say my machine was not in green heart mode very often. I snuck a look at Tom's machine and was horrified to find his green heart gleaming away at him for most of his performance. What a bastard - he carries way more excess weight than me but has this ridiculously good aerobic fitness. My green heart symbol moved into amber as I laboured along, my heart rate increasing. The machine started to get quite concerned as the heart rate indicator moved from amber, through red and finally into brilliant vermillion, I think it was expecting me to have a heart attack. Hilariously, at one stage it went to vivid purple before flat lining altogether - yes, according to the treadmill I was officially dead. 

I decided to end my gym session in the Turkish steam room - now that is my sort of get-fit program, lay there and sweat without having to move a muscle. I could just feel all the toxins and free radicals being whisked away.

We got out to the old capital at Nizwa today and saw some great old Omani doors.