Kevin Tiller

After work I went to the gym. A while back I decided I wanted to build some core strength or upper body strength as I am frankly very weak everywhere apart from my legs which is quite natural for a runner. As I get older I want to be overall fit all over so have made a conscious effort to scale back the running and do more all round fitness.

This has taken a couple of years with my brief flirtation with crossfit that I love. But it was inconvenient to go to the Kogarah one even when I am working there. And the pricing model is bung $30 a session or $250 unlimited a month.

I went for a while to Andy’s Gym in Bundeena which pretty much hit the mark exercise-wise and price-wise at $20 a session, but he’s been scaling back and is now only open one day a week which is just too inconvenient for me.

I decided a couple of weeks back to make a change and find somewhere else. Luckily the big Pitt St Fitness First in the Sydney CBD has just re-opened with their crossfit-style model for $27 a week.  So if I commit to 2x a week that is only $13 a visit.  3x a week and it’s looking pretty cheap.

Dawn said that I shouldn’t really start a gym membership AND keep going to the “films for change” with dinner at $30 a week which is a fair call so I am not going to the films anymore (maybe just for really good ones as a treat).

Anyway I am trying to go to the gym 2x a week for now, without going too hard early on and getting injured. I will try to uplift it to 3x a week in due course. I am totally loving it. Tonight I arrived for a 6pm class, having left work at 5.50pm and doing a bit of a dash to get there, and changed.

I started off with a HIIT class (all classes listed here) ie High Intensity circuit for 30mins – kettlebells, star jumps, burpees, boxing, sledge-pushing, rope lifting, box jumps etc. 2 circuits in total.

Then a kettlebell class for 30mins, kettlebells in 4 or 5 ways with a bodyweight exercise in between, 2 circuits.

The finished off with a 30 min Kinesis class ie pretty much like a weight machine but actually 10 machines, 1 min on each then 2 circuits. But not high weights more like medium-weight but high reps.

As you can imagine I was wrecked afterwards so had a quick shower and went home. Was very tired on the train.

Later that night I watched a talk by a guy who rode his bike from the UK to India. It was well cool.

Danny began adventuring at the age of four when he cycled down the steep steps that led up to his family home in Buxton. The cuts on his knees, and sore head did nothing to deaden his adventurous spirit or his love of cycling.

A racing bike took Danny around the world racing for Great Britain in Duathlon, Quadrathlon and Triathlon from 2004-2008. A mountain bike won him the Guinness World Record for Bog Snorkelling Triathlon but it was his touring bike, the beautiful Shirley, that took Danny 15,000km, and half way round the world, to India to teach at a school in the jungle.

Battered and bruised, covered in dust, looking sickeningly thin and with a rather dodgy haircut after a nasty brush with a host of maggots, Danny arrived into Chembakolli on his 31st birthday twenty years since he had told his head mistress in an assembly that what he wanted to do in life was cycle round the world for charity.