It's a Dad's Life: This is January, when owners of health clubs throughout the country are stressed out because they know this is the month when most new business walks through the door.

I have been a part of this, looking at the flab hanging over my waistband in the first week of the year and marching into the gym expecting rippling abs by Easter. Without any thought, I hand over my bank account details and sign up for full membership for a year. A year later, I look down at the familiar flesh jutting over my belt and wonder where did that €900 go. It looks like it's been rolled up and surgically inserted just below my navel. "Ah well," I think as I sip at my pint and go back to the crossword, "if I just pull the jeans up a little higher you can't really notice." I worked out maybe six times in the year, at an average cost of €150 a session. It seems financial prowess is directly proportional to physical endeavour.

This year, however, I am a smug git. Last March, I started to run and I haven't stopped yet. I am 10 pounds lighter than 12 months ago, and rather fond of myself. Most nights, my route takes me out to Clontarf, directly past the Westwood gym that I so spectacularly failed to get fit in, and it is right there that my smugness simply oozes from every orifice. Invariably, there is a queue of cars trying to get into the carpark as I run by. For some reason these drivers would rather sit and wait than pitch up in the overflow carpark, 50 yards up the road. I can only presume that they are loath to entertain the possibility of working up a sweat anywhere other than where they have paid for the privilege. I move on up the road in a cloud of my own insufferability. But these barn-like, hamster wheel emporiums are awfully tempting. Even now, I'm thinking it would be good to sign up. The hard yards have been done out on the road; maybe I should devote some time to sculpting my shape. My delusions know no bounds. I am being dragged back in by, of all things, my kids.

Some marketing genius in "gym central" a few years back came up with the wheeze of conjoining health clubs with "kidzones" to cater for children's birthday parties. The upshot is that parents can bring their monsters along and hand them over to the care of the "kidzone" staff for a couple of hours, safe in the knowledge that they will be run ragged in a giant padded room before being fed sausages, chips, 7up and cake. The irony of this fare in a health club seemed to have escaped the aforementioned marketing guru. Obviously, the idea took off like Jade Goody's flapping lips in the face of a person of Indian descent. And so, we parents now often face the curious dilemma of what to do with a couple of empty hours on a Saturday afternoon.

There isn't quite enough time for a trip into town, and home may be a spin away, so you have to look to the locale for entertainment. Fortunately, our marketing friend has laid on a quality and health-conscious cafe, where you can nibble bran muffins, sip decaf, read the dailies and watch the world go by.

The world in this case being lycra-clad, 20-year-old volleyball players and their kick-boxing boyfriends. You sit there, watching them move lithely around the lobby, thinking that with a little bit of work, your biceps could look like that. All you need is a couple of nights a week curling the bar.

And look, the membership team are just over there, pens ready for your details.

That marketing guy . . . brilliant.