Power Cut

I was some nine minutes into my standard workout in the gym earlier this evening when all the lights suddenly went out. I remained magnificently calm and continued pedalling. Since I was the only person in the gym at the time, there was no one else around to perform a quick fix by attending to the fuse box, so I completed the remainder of my stint in the dark, illuminated only by the lights from the digital readout on the elliptical trainer. The machine seems to be battery-powered or something, so I didn't need to stop, and the air-conditioning mercifully continued to function. Essentially, I suppose, it was business as usual except for the possibility that someone might turn up and wonder why I had chosen to pedal in the dark.

Funnily enough the sudden lack of energy on the part of the lights matched my own general sense of not being entirely with it this evening. Far from the loss of the lighting helping me into a focused performance of the personal best variety, my lack of the necessary vim resulted in something close to a personal worst. All I can say in self-defence is that I kept going, which is all any of us can reasonably do when the dark is gathering.