6.30: Wake up. Glance at alarm clock. Decide whether or not I really need that workout.

6.40: Drag myself out of bed. Throw on Muslim swimsuit, tights, and white, oversized branded t-shirt.

6.45: Go to rooftop pool. Discover that is, literally, a rooftop pool. Spend ten minutes zoobing at the view. I can see the ocean, and teensy weensy people at ground level [rooftop is on 13th floor. Spend two more minutes wondering why the hotel has no ‘room 13s’ but has a pool on the thirteenth floor. Accidents can happen you know…]

6.57: Get into pool. Brrrr. Spend three seconds wondering why the swimming pool ladder has strings of rust suspended in mid-water. Note: I don’t say the ladder is rusted, I say the ladder has strings of rust suspended around it. And the strings aren’t floating, they’re just there, like petrified golden threads. Odd.

7.02: Start swimming. Target is 50 laps. Which is easy, coz the pool is only 5 feet deep, 10 feet long, and 6 feet wide. Some people I know can’t even fit across that width…

7.27: Thirty laps done [though at this (lack of) length, they’re more like stretches than laps…] Not tired. Wondering if energy use is proportional to depth…and whether I am actually burning calories or just fooling around in an oversized bathtub.

7.28: It starts to rain. Jump out, grab gear, spring indoors. Decide to use the gym instead.

7.29: Spinning on the spot in the gym, trying to decide what I want to use. I can see an electronic bike-xercise but no cables. Walking round it to see where the cables are.

7.33: Still spinning around. The gym is small, and has weights, weights, more weights, a broken exercise bike, more weights, a running-machine-thingie, more weights, a step-ladder-master-thingie, more weights…I should say weight trainers, not weights; they are variations of things you lift with your arms, legs, knees, glutes, hips, and etc and etc. I settle for the stair-master.

7.36: Trying to figure out how said stairmaster works.

7.38: Still trying to figure out how stairmaster works. It keeps telling me to press ‘Enter’. Input weight. Enter. Input age. Enter. Input target. Enter. Calories, Cardio, Fat burn. Enter. Target 125. [125 what?] Enter.

7.40: Stairmaster has somehow decided I should step for 1 hour. Ee-eh?!

7.42: Exhausted after just two minutes! Jump off the machine and head back to my room.

7.44: Realise that there is a gym B that might have a functional bike-xercise. Request key. Told it will come in a minute.

7.50: Waiting for key.

8.01: Still waiting for key.

8.03: Keys.

8.05: Yippee! Three bike-xercises. All dead. No cables. Drat. Decide to use the running-thingie. Gym instructor comes in and offers to train me while getting me shoes, but I’m already late. He suggests I get off the runner and warm up…which I do. Except I don’t stop the running-thingie before I get off it, I just stop runn … walking…with rather embarrassing results, heehee.

8.07: Gym instructor tells me the bike-xercise is battery operated and initiates on body-heat (?) So I have to panda it and start cycling so that it goes on. Okay. He sets it for ten minutes. I am finished by 3, but I try to stay longer.

8.09: Slowing down. The bike starts beeping to remind me to work it. If I get too slow, the thing goes off. Sigh.

8.17: Waddle off the bike [pant pant, wheeze] and drag myself back to my room.

8.23: Zoobing in bathroom, trying to figure how to take a bath. Stop laughing.

8.25: Still zoobing. This bathroom is preeeeetty! The wall has an etching of palm trees and I can almost feel the breeze and…back to the point. Bath. Right. There’s a white tile wall. The water pipe grows out of the wall. The stuff that holds the shower head also grows out of the wall. No tap in sight.

8.28: Found the tap. It was hiding behind the shower curtain. Some feet from the pipes, on the other side of the wall.

8.30: Trying to figure out the tap. It doesn’t look like a tap. It looks like a shiny metal toilet-paper rack. Note to self: Invest in cameraphone. [NB: in Dar, if you ask for tissue paper, you will be given serviettes. If you ask for serviettes, you will get the ‘What planet did you land from’ stare. If you want the-kind-of-paper-used-in-ladies-or-gents, say toilet paper, rudeness aside.]

8.35: Have finally figured how to get the tap open. Still wondering why it is so far from the pipe and why it is on the opposite wall. Water is hot. I feel like a sacrificial chicken. Five more minutes to figure out how to get the water to be a little cold.

8.40: Done showering. Deciding what to wear. Have 3 jeans and 5 tshirts…

8.38: I’m late for workshop! I need to try the DSTV.

Conclusion: Working out is hard. And boring.There has to be an easier way to lose 10 kg. But I so want me a 13th floor flat with 5 different mirrors and a rooftop pool. Awesome!!

PS: I didn’t get back to my room till 2.00 a.m. Yes, we work that late. So no DSTV today. Maybe tomorrow.

32 thoughts on “My two-hour workout

  1. I’d really like to experience that oversized bathtub you call a swimming pool. With my long figure, I wonder if I can actually swim in it.

    we-ell, i maaaaay have exaggerated a liiiiitle bit. it’s actually 5 feet deep, both at the shallow & deep end, then 10 metres long and five metres wide. but still…

  2. it took you 5 minutes to shower???! that’s fast..by any standards, even mine..and that pool, ahem, tub, must be quite a sight..and does anything in their gym work?

    heheh well, i found at least one bike that does **grin**

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