End of an era for Tiddenfoot as John hangs up his running shoes

John is finally hanging up his running shoes

It’s the end of an era at Tiddenfoot recently after one of their longest serving members of the gym, John Quick, is hanging up his running shoes after twenty-five years.

John and his wife Sue are leaving Leighton Buzzard and moving to Dorset.

The couple began using Tiddenfoot in 1981 when they brought their first child to the swimming pool. A few years later the family joined Leighton Buzzard Swimming Club and John went on to become a coach and swimming-gala judge as well as being chairman of the club for two years.

However, in 1996 John became a self-employed publishing consultant, and because he was working from home became worried about putting on weight and losing his fitness.

He said: “Previously I had worked in London and every morning I walked to the station and then from Euston to the city centre in order to get to work,” he explained, “and in the evening I would make the return journey. When I started working from home I realised I was losing about an hour of brisk walking every working day, so in 1997 I decided to join the gym at Tiddenfoot”.

In those days public gyms were a new concept and the one at Tiddenfoot, called Contours, was in a small room which contained two bikes, two running machines, one rowing machine, two steppers and a few weights machines. “There wasn’t really any qualified gym-training personnel in those days,” explained John, “and the first manager of Contours was a man who had owned a sandwich business in Dunstable which had gone into bankruptcy.”

John joined Contours just a couple of months after it first opened and, with the exception of holidays, illnesses and events beyond his control, has attended the gym on five mornings every week for twenty-five years and has almost certainly performed more than five thousand gym sessions.

“The trick of maintaining this lifestyle over such a long period of time is to monitor your body,” said John. “Weigh yourself on the same morning every week, just after having got out of bed, and keep a record of it. When you see your weight slowly falling without having to diet it will give you the determination to continue. In addition, wear a heart-rate monitor when exercising and also check your heart rate when resting. When you realise it is slowly falling, thus putting less stress on your body, it will make you understand that you are beginning to take control of your health.”

Over a full week John will run a total distance of thirteen miles.

“The fact that we now have highly qualified and experienced staff who can design a routine that is specific to your individual needs is a massive benefit,” John added. “It’s all a very long way from the sandwich-shop manager.”

And then there are the developments in technology. “Running on a treadmill for about three hours every week isn’t much fun when you’re just looking at a wall, and for me a big breakthrough was the development of CV machines with entertainment systems. Now I can plug myself into TV or radio, which makes the act of running much more enjoyable.”