There seems to be some sort of internal dilemma facing you in your mid twenties. A feeling of personal guilt, coming from sitting about for too long, indulging more than is advisable, eating fairly irregularly and not exercising properly. Your limbs are starting to ache more than they should. Your stomach is becoming noticeable, and your muscles less so. There's a nagging voice in your head that perhaps you should do something about it.
You go through the options.
A bike ride. For some reason cycling always evokes romantic connotations of riding leisurely through the countryside with a picnic, to a spot with a nice view. Then taking a nap under a leafy oak tree, before rolling back down the hillside to arrive home before the light begins to fade.
The reality is less captivating. You're more likely to be immediately confronted with the undesirable challenge of a monstrous hill to conquer. You begin to ascend and your legs start to deceive you. Spiteful legs. You haven't used certain muscles in them for some time and it's time for their revenge. Stubbornness to conquer the hill and submission for the pain in your legs, blurred vision and lack of oxygen battle each other in the fight to make you get off the blasted thing and push it. Finding the right gear is another constant losing battle you have to fight. The high gears punish you. A condescending feeling, as your legs go around as if you were an anquished lobster lying on its back. Anything lower causes more effort than you feel able to afford.
Feeling slightly light-headed, you sway around, no longer in full control of the bike. Cars speed past you, blasting their horns. It's just started to rain.
Before considering all this it probably should have dawned on you that you don't own a bike.
A run then. People like running. Seems quite nice. Listening to your ipod, with nothing but your own thoughts in your head. The first time you don't quite get it. For some reason, you think it's all about pace. A good work-out should push you, after all! You run quickly up the street for about 500metres before coming to a prompt end, crouching down, gasping for breath and holding your sides.
The second time is a little easier. The more experienced runner having told you that your method is perhaps not the best. You enjoy it for a while. Maybe this is it. A born runner! Then the creeping realisation that you've been going for half an hour and feel like like you can't run another yard. You're two and a half miles from home. It's just started to rain.
Swimming? It has its merits. Certainly a good way to get some exercise. You look on the internet for a local pool. The nearest public pool is two miles away!? To go and bathe in a river of child's urine and oppressive chlorine that will make your eyes burn for the rest of the day? I'll pass thanks.
You're running low on options to do some exercise that doesn't involve another participant. And everyone's busy. A game of football is rarely on the cards. Not enough people to play. No one owns a tennis racket. You realise the only option left is the gym.
The gym, it then dawns on you, is perhaps the most undesirable place on earth. The gym, you reailse, is the place where you'd most likely find sanctuary when a new ice age is ushered in, but not before.
Why anyone would part with money to run up and down on the spot on a conveyor belt is baffling to you. You could always go and lie down and attempt to lift some weights above your scrawny frame, while a man built like a tree leers down at you contemptuously.
You resort to five push-ups, before collapsing and realising that the carpet is actually a lot more comfortable than you first thought.
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