Nine stars!

During the summer holidays, I started going to the gym in between my days of working in Sporting Hell Inc. I started to enjoy it, and in my yearly budget for the academic year, I set aside £130 for a membership to the university's sport centre and gym, with a little extra for sports clothing.

One term went by; I went twice. Equivalent to paying £65 per workout. Ouch.

Last term, I made a lot of excuses:

• It's too hard to fit a workout in two hour gaps!
• I'm too tired at the end of the day to work out after lectures.
• You can't work out before a 9am lecture. That's absurd!
• I'll just not schedule working out for the weekend. That's a trip to campus just to come back.

Some of these were actually valid; I did have very tiring days last term, with 9am starts, 5pm finishes, and two/three hour gaps in the middle, where I often walked home to eat lunch and do a little work.

This term's timetable was much nicer. Most days ending at 2, with only one 9am lecture and one 5pm end. There were some 2 hour gaps, and I felt incredibly annoyed at the idea of so much money going to waste. So, I bit the bullet, and tried to fit in the workout in two hours.

Turns out that a round trip (Maths dep't to gym then back to Maths) takes two hours if you really dawdle. Usually, I arrive about 10-15 early for the lecture after a gym trip and collapse in a soft chair somewhere.

So, my schedule became gym between lectures on Monday morning, and gym in between Pride and debating socials on a Wednesday. I am on campus for reasons other than the gym on those days, so I will definitely be on campus

My ideal gym pattern is Mon-Wed-Fri. Problem is, the only gap is the two hours between lectures and debating, 2-4. Due to the layout of the lectures beforehand, this really should be lunchtime. I couldn't fit a gym workout and lunch. Problem. Then Rachel came! She goes swimming at 3 when it's Ladies Only swim, and relatively quiet. So, I go with her.

Once I established an easy-to-maintain pattern, I got a reward chart. One red star for every gym session, one blue star for every swimming session. The chart gives you space to put rewards after an amount of stars of your choosing. I chose:

• Gilmore Girls: Season 3 after 9 stars
• A nice date with Lovely Boyfriend after 18 stars
• Making my favourite cake after 27 stars

(The new gym routine has come with a slightly more conscious attitude to eating, so there's been very little cake this term.)

It's Week 3. I've been to the gym six times, and I've been swimming three times. That is nine stars.

I've started measuring myself on Sundays, and it seems encouraging, although I'm just enjoying having the time to exert myself physically and not think about anything.

Now I can order the Gilmore Girls boxset I've worked hard for! :)