Death by Lycra

I’m typing this with streaming eyes, stuffy nose and a throat that makes me feel like an apprentice to one of those crazy performers who swallows broken glass. In my case, it didn’t go down but lodged in my larynx and all I can get out is a croak, and a barking cough like the ghastly dog from three doors down.

I am not putting up with it. I had to cancel an appointment with the personal trainer at the gym for the third time running as I haven’t the energy to walk to the bus stop, let alone show off my prowess on a dozen machines when my eyes are streaming too much to see whether I’m on wimpish Level 4 or big-bog-macho-hairy-chested Level 40.

Talking of the latter, the basement gym where all the muscle tends to congregate must have been closed the other day for suddenly the upstairs gym, that gentle space where those recovering from heart attacks, or those who, like me, haven’t exercised for years and are tentatively flexing flaccid flab, proceed at a staid pace on the treadmill and hang gasping onto the rotating arms of the cross-trainer, was invaded. Huge, sweating bears with biceps the size of Tube trains pumped weights with great grunts and loud exhalations. A swarthy Latin poseur in tight gym shorts and carefully gelled hair paused between the lat machine and the triceps push to parade in front of the mirror, slyly eyeing up the reflections of the females to see who was admiring him. It was not good. Perhaps this lurgy came to save me from death by lycra.

At the Gym

Having an hour to spare between a visit to the chiropractor (excellent progress, see you in six weeks, hooray), and an appointment for a massage from Goddess Daphne (she of the healing fingers), I decided to spend it at the gym. I had paid up for three months' membership and hadn't been since May 2. That means I have wasted £30 and put on 30 pounds, an equation that makes more sense to me than the figures my accountant has just sent me.

Now, in between gym visits I had bought a sports bra. It was sealed in a plastic pack so I hadn't been able to try it on in the shop. It looked a very fine gym bra. Not only did it promise to hold my bouncy bits firm on the cross-trainer, it was also reversible and could be worn white with a black logo, or vice versa. Having broken a nail wrestling it out of the packet, I nervously tried to whisk off the bra I was wearing and replace it with my splendid new purchase before anyone came in. You see, my gym isn't the type that is full of splendid young goddesses flaunting their perfect birthday suits. It caters more for old wrecks like me and the staff are wonderful; sensitive, understanding and helpful even when I jam the exercise bike with my towel and drop a weight on the instructor's toe. But even so, I didn't want anyone to come in and be treated to an eyeful of my flabby bits. If nothing else, it might cause nausea and put them off their 'tone up your pelvic floor' class.

Thrusting my right arm into a hole in the tight lycra, I tried to tug it over my head. There was a TWANG as of a bow releasing an arrow and my glasses hurtled across the room. £450-quid's-worth. I closed my eyes, opened them again and found myself too blind to see where they had landed. Luckily, I had brought my varifocals. Groping for them in my back-pack, I put them on and saw, with blessed relief, that they had landed on the bench and were quite all right. I tried to don the bra without specs this time and couldn't get my head through. I'd pulled it into a figure of eight and it was terminally twisted. Third time lucky and I got the thing on. It held my boobs firmly. So firmly that you couldn't see I had any, thus totally wrecking my chances of pulling the nice, suntanned (villa in Spain?) 60-ish guy to whom I had chatted as he was toning his pecs on my last visit.

After six minutes on the treadmill I decided to check my heartbeats per minute. 66. Surely that couldn't be right? I'd just run for three minutes with the treadmill at No. 7 speed. At 66, surely I was, if not clinically dead, then well on the way. On I pounded for another two minutes and tried again. 149. That was more like it. But wait. 66 to 149 in two minutes might be slow off the blocks in terms of cars, but it sounded pretty like a heart attack waiting to happen to me.

I dismounted and got on the low exercise bike, the one where your knees pummel your tum flab with every revolution. For some reason, I wasn't enjoying it. I got on the high bike instead. It was set for a giraffe, not a normal person, and the saddle refused to lower itself even when I balanced all my weight on it like a trainee swimmer practising in-air breast-stroke. Twenty goes on the triceps press (the upper arms look like blancmange with smallpox) and it was time for my massage.

Daphne is a small, neat Malaysian woman in her early fifties with fingers so strong that she could balance the earth and spin it. When those finger tips press on your stiff shoulders, the pain-pleasure border is blissfully crossed. Daphne plays the flute and is writing a book. "Shall I call it 'Diagnosing Depression' or 'Treating Depression'?" she asked me. "What's wrong with - ouch! - 'Diagnosing and Treating - ouch - Depression'?" I suggested as she cracked my crystalline deposits and untangled my tense trigger points. I staggered out in such a healing haze that I mistook which floor I was on and walked into the midst of a men's body-toning session. Hard thighs in shorts were too much to take in. Gulping and apologising, I climbed two floors to the changing room where I ripped off the offending lycra bondage garment and went home bra-less and shameless.