It is three weeks since I joined the gym and I have had my first assessment today. Not big news for some but bigs news for me!

I have not managed to do the split of running and the gym, however, I have been to the gym regularly – although not as regularly as I would like.

I have continued the initial workout routine and have been enjoying it but I did find the upper body rower to be quite boring.

So today I had a chat about how I got on with a different training and for the most part am happy but I have set myself a goal of running a 10K by the end of the year.  Whether this is a race or on the treadmill is yet to be defined but it gives me something to work towards.

I did switch the upper body rower for the proper rowing machine and set myself a new challenge.  One which was a bit of hard work but that’s good as I want to push myself.

I also increased the speed of the second interval on the treadmill and increased the weights on the Lateral Machine Pulls and Chest Press.

I don’t think this is bad considering I have been going an average of twice a week since I started and I am already seeing an increase in ability.  I am also seeing an increase in the want to go which I have not had with my running for a while due to the problems with my calves/hamstrings etc.

During my workout, the Pleasure Principal came on and I remembered first listening to that at school whilst swapping lunches with school friends.  We were following the song with the lyrics printed in Smash Hits magazine.  I did wonder if the teenage me that was happily munching Mars bars at school would ever consider the 40+ me would be in the gym on a Saturday morning?  It’s also the same thought about the running as I hated cross country running at school and found the track runs (apart from the 100 metres where I excelled), to be boring.

Funny how things change isn’t it!

My new routine is as follows:

• Exercise bike
• Treadmill (currently intervals – increased speed 0f second interval)
• Rowing machine – 2000 metres
• Cross Trainer
• Chest Press (increased weight)
• Lateral Machine Pulls (increased weight)
• Exercise Bike

The clientele in the gym is quite mixed and I have attended at various times or different days.   There is a mixed of older people doing cardio, middle-aged and people my age training as well as the odd Crossfit fanatic and muscle meat-head.

If the guy in the main photo was in my gym I would definitely go more often.

A friend of mine has a particular type and he would have been very happy today as there was a very handsome, muscular, tall guy that fitted that type perfectly!

I am still to find a decent app to help me monitor gym sessions.

My Apple Watch does a half decent job.  I am logging the workouts manually in the Under Armour app on my iPhone but find it very cumbersome as some information is logged in “Activity” and others in “Health”.

Does anyone have a decent app that auto logs gym workouts on the iPhone or at least connects to “Health” data from the Apple Watch?  Help!  Please leave a recommendation in the comments section.