Dispiriting (1)
I go to the gym in Battersea Park, in London. It's dead convenient for me as it's just round the corner, but as it also has the only proper athletics track in that part of the world it also is used for training by some of the most spectacularly fit people you'll ever meet. Both Kelly Holmes and Christine Ohuruogu have used it for training before their gold-medal wins at the olympics, for example.

These people might be incredibly fit, but I'm not. I go to the gym because I have an abiding love of cakes and I want to avoid them giving me a heart attack so I can live longer and eat more of them. Over the years I've got kinda used to being surrounded by people who look like they relax by jogging up mountains with a couple of anvils inder each arm, and I just get on with it, but sometimes...

I was on the rowing machine, looking not unlike what would happen if you popped an elephant seal onto a rack. I was puffing and wheezing and struggling away, when I realised that the chap on the next machine over was - to put it mildly - thrashing the fucking hell out of it. Looking over, I realised that was because I was sitting next to Daley Thompson; twice Olympic Decathlon Gold-medal Winner and four-times world record holder.
As I looked he gave me a broad smile and a wink and put the difficulty setting on his machine up to 'murderous' before setting an even faster pace.

I think that was the point that the last remnants of my masculinity finally died.
(davywavy, Fri 10 Jul 2009, 10:35, 4 replies)

You weren't mashing your keyboard fast enough...
...or waggling your joystick, obviously.
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Fri 10 Jul 2009, 10:38, closed)

.
Oh man, EVERYONE remembers him for the joystick waggling!
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 10 Jul 2009, 11:41, closed)

I know!
All that time hitting the Z and X keys as fast as possible *completely wasted*.
(davywavy, Fri 10 Jul 2009, 12:16, closed)

I loved "difficulty setting to 'murderous'"
That's every setting as far as I'm concerned, but there should certainly be an official knob to prove it.
( Ugi , it's a game of give and cake, Tue 14 Jul 2009, 17:48, closed)