Walking into the refurbished gym at Pleasance, I was soon running in the Eastern Alps, or riding the course of the Giro d’Italia. At least that is what the fanciest of new machinery dared to have me believe, but it was a trying effort, one numbed by the continual tedium of the gym itself.
Admittedly, I am not a gym enthusiast, my penchant for cardio and team sports often pushing me outside or into rather de-isolated prisms of suffering. Whereas a weights room appears solidaristic between the muscled characters strong and weak, cardio rooms are narrow, lonely spaces. The variable intensity of exercise only diminishes every exertion into a private battle between a rational mind – futilely railing against machine-induced labour – and a masochistic inclination, fuelled by the hunger of bettering one’s own condition. It’s not my sort of battle, to say the least, but articles must be written, and opinion must be thrust forward. In this spirit, we continue.
Wide mirrors no longer adorn the wall, instead ‘wooden’ panels are spaffed between the dividing line of cardio and strength, internalising any inner struggle without the wayward blinkered glances towards anyone else. Starting on the treadmill, I was rooted in the corner, with only the peripheral view of Eric Liddell for any exterior motivation. Not that his statue, depicting his gold-medal winning lunge, was able to stir any great passion or acceleration in my strides. Where the gym’s own playlist seemed to be a reanimation of Jess Glynne’s greatest hits (inspiring the most annoying memories of an outstretched arm on budget holiday adverts) I could only retreat further into my own aural world of 90s Big Beat and Trance, blocking out any external sentiment merely to survive the sensations of induced exercise.
The bike was little better, the gearing constantly wavering, depriving me of any rhythm or comfort. The smiling man on screen projected only platitudes onto my face, joyfully oblivious to my difficulty in maintaining a mildly exhaustive tempo through the tedium. But finally came the cross trainer and, in the middle of the room, at last I felt part of something. Within myself, God was the DJ rallying me up the steep gradients set before me, suddenly I was motivated enough to push my body into a degree of comfortable discomfort. It was fleeting however, punctured by the constant of the gym’s environment itself.
Afterwards, slumping back home through Newington, the sun was rising behind Arthur’s seat, both lighting up the city, and offering mystery to the Crags shadowed by the seat’s peak. Music still soundtracking my experience, it was Pacific 202 that gave a main-character moment of joyful flashback. I was running around Holyrood Park, looping over the agony of the ever-steepening ascent, embracing the blissful tailwind and panoramic views of a slumbering city of wonder as I began the steady descent. It did not so much trap me with my thoughts as slowing them entirely, suspending my mind above the everyday mundanity and routine suffering that both life, and the gym, can beholden it to. And no amount of aggressive air conditioning or animated screens are ever likely to convince me otherwise.
Image courtesy of Callum Devereux