The Long Commute
My life is by no means perfect, but I have a nice home and a job that I enjoy. Two things that some people can only wish for. I am a personal trainer and get a real buzz out of helping people achieve their fitness goals.
I don’t only work in one gym, my customers choose which gym they are comfortable with and I take their sessions there. If the customer is comfortable with the gym, they tend to be totally focussed on the sessions. I have taken classes at many different gyms and have trained people that feel uncomfortable in their surroundings, this always has a detrimental effect on the results that they manage to achieve.
The only problem with me working in so many different gyms is the commute. I can be travelling for anything up to six hours a day, and because I live in a big city, driving around is a nightmare because of congestion and traffic. I usually take the subway, it is by far the quickest and cheapest option available to me. While some of the journeys are interesting, some can be terrible. I enjoy watching all of the different characters going about their day, but some people are rude and extremely loud.
Noisy Journey
I had simply put up with the noise for many years, but one night while I was looking for some new headphones. I found you could buy noise eliminating headphones, this could solve all of my noisy journeys. I found a website called http://www.theinstrumentreviewer.com/, they have lots of information on how they work and the best pair to buy. I bought myself a set and put them to the test.
The first train I got on was strangely quiet, it is typical that the one time you want a noisy journey you don’t get one, so I couldn’t try the headphones out in the noisy situation that I wanted to. I decided that I would take another train, this time on a very busy line. The carriage was full of kids making their way to school. It was so loud that I couldn’t hear myself think. I gave the headphones a whirl and much to my surprise, they blocked out every little noise that the kids were making, perfect!
A New Client
I received an email from a prospective customer. They wanted me to tailor a workout for a charity event they were going to be taking part in. He explained that the event was like a military assault course. I took the opportunity to train this client in the great outdoors, this was something I didn’t get to do as much as I would like to.
I knew of a little wooded area that would be perfect to use for training. I took the new client for regular sessions, three times a week we would get covered in mud and act like children. It was great fun and we both became good friends. A week before the event he called me and explained that he had been involved in a drunken accident and sprained his ankle, he was going to have to pull out of the event.
I was both annoyed because he had been drinking, and that all of his hard work was going to go to waste. I offered to take his place so he could keep the donations he had managed to raise.
I turned up on the day, and to my surprise, his ankle was fine. He told me he was only joking but had entered me for the race. We both took part and finished the course with very respectable times. We have stayed in touch since and regularly meet for a muddy run in the woods, and have applied for the very same event next year!