So who's this Gym fella?

and more importantly why should I pop round for a visit?

Gym's are fucking terrifying. It's the kind of place which makes you want to eat a mars bar to calm your nerves just thinking about it. I've not set foot in a gym for at least seven years and that was only my schools 'fitness suite'. We would do 5 or so minutes on each piece of equipment which consisted of; two exercise bikes, two treadmills, two rowing machines, a leg-y weight thing, an arm-y weight and a stand-y uppy weight thing. And that right there may be why I haven't been back. Gyms conjure up memories of giving it beans on the exercise bike, trying to stitch up my best friend on the treadmill by waking up the speed as high as it would go and just sitting on the floor underneath the stand-y uppy weights. So as you can imagine I wasn't in a hurry to go back any time soon. Or so I thought.

Now in terms of daily exercise I do a fair amount of walking what with cars and driving lessons being about the same price as a small diamond these days. But I really wanted to up my game and give my mental health a little boost with some endorphin releasing exercise. I suppose the recommendation from my podiatrist that cycling would help loosen up my - his words- "insanely tight calves". The village I live in has a small gym which goes by the name of  Viking (not intimidating at all right?!) a few minutes walk away. So knowing nothing about gyms, the distance from my own shower factored heavily into my decision of which one to try. I managed to convince my wonderful boyfriend to come along with me, mainly because I wouldn't have been able to go in on my own!

On first impressions I thought I would hate it! The first thing you see is a whole room full of weight machines, with blokes who obviously know what they're doing on them. Literally as far as the eye could see were what looked like torture devices. So I did the sensible thing and followed the signs for "Women's changing rooms" and steeled myself for what I was sure to be a thoroughly awkward visit for everyone involved.

But it wasn't.

It was bloody brilliant, Spending half an hour focusing on nothing but the physical sessions of cycling or running (walking fast in my case) on a treadmill. Definitely the worth the nervy walk up to the gym. So now sweaty and disgusting I'm going to lie down.