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I go to classes. If someone isn’t standing in front of me, barking out reps and making sure I do them, it’s not going to get done. That’s something I know about myself. As much as I admire those sneakered, self-motivated New Yorkers bounding through Manhattan at a brisk jog all hours of the day and night, I’m just never going to be one.

And I stand in the front. You try slacking off when you’re directly in the instructor’s line of sight.

I think of the money. The brilliant thing about belonging to a gym, as opposed to those €30 boutique spin classes so many of my friends adore, is that since you’ve already paid, it gets cheaper every time you go. That’s amazing! If I go to one class in a month, it’s a €90 class. Two, they’re each €45. Nine classes? At nine, which works out to fewer than three times a week, I’m paying only $10 per class.

I talk about going to the gym incessantly. If everyone in my office knows I plan to go, I have to keep my word. “It’s like peer pressure!” my coworker exclaimed in dismay after the third time that day I checked to see if she was coming with me to the gym. “It’s OK,” I reassured her. “I’m fine with that.”

I tell myself going to the gym is my reward. There’s no better choice I could be making at that moment for my health and well-being. It’s a breath of fresh superiority.

I leave my gym bag at the office. This is decidedly trickier if you’re the type to work out before and after work, but I haven’t yet reached that level of lunacy. As someone who exclusively exercises at night, I bring my gym bag home, empty it, refill it, and bring it to work the next day, whether I’m planning to go to the gym or not. On the weekend, I just bring it home and then back on Monday morning. This way, I’m never caught without runners and I get an arm workout during my commute.

I wrangle an escort. To make sure I’m shamed into actually arriving at the gym instead of being segued by an exit strategy, I do my best to press co-workers into escort service. “We don’t even have to work out together! Let’s just walk over together!” (Oh man, I’m the worst.)

I tell myself I can leave mid-class. I say it, but I never do it. Once I’m there, in my gym clothes, sneakers strapped on, in a prime front-row spot, you can bet I’m not leaving. It’s not like I’m doing a four-hour CrossFit workout or running a marathon; it’s a 45-minute class, and I can do pretty much anything for 45 minutes. By the time I think of leaving, it’s over.

How do you motivate yourself to get to the gym?

What training should you be doing less than one week out from Tough Mudder Ireland?

You’ve started training, now here’s how to keep building that momentum