It's Gym O' Clock

 One thing I don't seem to be able to overcome is the inescapable dullness of the gym. 

It's repetitive, uncomfortable and requires a lowering of sartorial standards. 

This makes no sense. I took this image to show a lovely road I could be running on, but the record is called "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road", yet Elton is clearly climbing ONTO the yellow brick road. It's "Hello Yellow Brick Road, Elton. You chump. 

There is no one at the gym you would want to talk to, including, as you catch your puce, glistening reflection in the many, many mirrors, yourself. The young people are smug and sit about on the equipment looking at their phones, knowing their attractive and symmetrical bodies are entirely unearned. There is always a middle aged man pacing up and down shouting about work into his phone. He is so important he cannot even stop businessing to lift. There are a lot of Audis in the car park outside. 

You don't want to get too close to the old people - and there a lot of them - in case you're called upon to resuscitate them. I don't want to break granny's kindling ribs, only to find out she was just catching a quick forty winks on the rowing machine. 

Worse are the lifers, the people who are there no matter what day or time you turn up for you paltry half hour workout. They never look good. They're either bug eyed ectomorphs, living skeletons in Lycra, joylessly running mile after mile, not going anywhere but surely trying to escape something. Or roided up puffy, spotty men in tattoos and a singlet, looking as if all this weight training was merely a prelude to fifty rounds of bare-knuckle in a Somerset barn. 

When I'm on the treadmill, puffing away, it shows me video footage of coastal pathways, or forest trails or even, today, just an ordinary suburban street in a modern city. Something of a self-own for the gym there. You mean I could be doing this outside, on a pavement, for free? It's an idea.