Tuesday, 27 March 2012

30 minutes of light exercise in the sauna

Hello again.  I just came back from the sauna at the hotel down the road.  They only turn the sauna on when someone wants to use it, so I had to wait a while for it to get up to temperature.  When I first got into the sauna it was only a balmy 60C, but at least that way I was able to adjust to it gradually as the mercury started to rise.  It was a Finnish sauna so there was the possibility of increasing the humidity by pouring water onto the hot rocks.  I figured that since the temperature at the start of my session was not that high, I would ramp up the humidity to make it feel a lot hotter.

I started to do some light exercise whilst it was still heating up.  To start with I did some stretches and then I started jogging on the spot.  Since I was the only one in there I didn't look like a crazy fool.  By the time the 15 minute timer had to be turned over and started again, the temperature was 70C.  That was more like it.  Then I noticed that there was a gap under the door where a draught was coming in, so I stuck a towel under the door to make it even hotter.  Now I was starting to feel it.  My breathing started to increase and I was feeling a little dizzy.  I chugged down a decent amount of water and stayed with it.  For a few minutes I had to just sit down and recollect myself.  It was now 80C and incredibly humid owing to my generous splashing of water on the rocks.  I saw that there were about 8 minutes left so I just sat down with my head bowed and splashed water over my head.

In the final few minutes I got to my feet once again and started jogging on the spot.  I had done it.  I had survived my first 30 minute session in the sauna without escaping to get a breather.  For tomorrow I have asked the staff to have the sauna ready for me at 5pm, and for it to be at a starting temperature of 80C.  That will be a little bit tougher to endure but Insa'Allah I will manage it and even manage to throw in a bit of jogging on the spot for good measure too.

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