The gym is a great location for people watching

I've never liked the gym. I hate treadmills, I hate working out with other people around me. I would much rather go for a run outside or do a workout video in the privacy of my own home. Unfortunately, as this is not possible in my new home (as much as I hate treadmills, I definitely liked having one in my old basement, as a last resort), I have to suck it up and visit the dreaded place.

I have to say, I definitely prefer the 5 am crowd to the 6 pm one. Waking up at the crack of dawn is horrible, but there are a)fewer people in my gym and b)only people who actually care about working out present. The brave souls out there at 5 am are there to have a serious workout and simply go about their business and leave.

The 6 pm crew? Now this is a different story. The people watching was definitely much more intersting at this time but I found myself extremely annoyed at the majority of the people there "working out."

Last week, I went to the gym after work, determined to get my cross-training workout in before ruining all my hard work with a Mexican date with my fiance. Actually, I think I was more motivated by the promised margarita/tacos than the desire to work out. I grabbed my handy-dandy Kindle and iPod and off I was. I walked in to quite a scene. There was a woman on the treadmill, working hard and struggling to finish her workout - I wanted to applaud her for her effort. The other treadmills were occupied by people who probably made "working out" their New Year's resolution and they were putting in about 30-50% worth of effort. You could just tell that these people were just there to say they went but didn't really care about it. There were also about 3-4 people just walking around, putting in about 5 minutes worth of exercise before finding their friends and chit-chatting. What's the point of going to the gym if you aren't going to work out? It reminded me of when I was in college, training for my first DFMC in 2005. I would go to BU's brand new gym to either get in an extensive cross-training workout or hit the treadmills when the Boston weather was less than ideal for outdoor running. While I was there, sweating up a storm, I would see fellow students, mostly women, sitting on the exercise bikes or on treadmills/ellipticals with magazines, barely moving. Now, it's one thing to read a magazine while working out - there are plenty of people who can do both. These people were NOT working out - sometimes I would look over adn they wouldn't even be moving! I could never understand these people and always wanted to yell "Hey! If you're not going to use the machine, kindly step aside so someone else who needs it more can use it. You can read your magazine at the Starbucks across the street and burn just as many calories."

Anyway, I digress. Luckily, I didn't need the treadmills this night or else I would have been really frustrated. I put my Kindle and water bottle on a free elliptical machine and got to work. About 5 minutes after I started feelin' the burn, I noticed that this kid had entered the gym and decided to stretch right in front of my machine. It reminded me of the Seinfeld epidosde where Elaine was trying to stretch in front of a guy she thought was cute. He looked like, as Snooki would descrbie, a "juicehead gorilla guido." I affectionately call him the "bro." He was the kind of man who thinks he's all muscle but his muscles are covered by fat. I think he might also be on steroids. He reminded me of the Teresa's husband on "The Real Housewives of NJ" because he was fat and fake-muscular but she thought he was "juicy." After spending about 5 minutes in front of me, he moved on to a treadmill and I was happy to not have anything except machines in my line of sight.

I hate the elliptical in my gym for one reason - it only lets me do an 18 minute workout at a time. I wanted to put in at least 30 minutes and there was no way to make this happen. Instead, I had to do two 18 minute sessions. At that point, I decided to make my way over to one of the exercise bikes. Within 5 minutes of sitting down, Mr. Gorilla Juicehead Guido showed up on the bike to my immediate right. I could feel him trying to make eye contact but luckily I was so engrossed in my book that I didn't have time to do anything other than workout and read. I was a woman on a mission - I still had to get in 35 minutes on the bike before I could leave, shower and eat my heart out. The dude left at some point and went over to lift some weights or something. This is when I found it hard not to notice him. I have never heard anyone make half as much noise as this guy was making. Holy moly, it was beyond annoying. I had to turn my iPod up just to try to drown him out. He reminded me of the guy from the Planet Fitness commercials:



I was beyond excited that it was almost time to leave because I couldn't drown him out! I wanted to tell him "Dude, you're lifting, no one is impressed. In fact, no one cares because we are all doing our own thing."

After a successful 60+ minutes of cross-training, I decided it was time to leave and get ready for dinner. I can't wait to see who I come across at the gym next!

Waking up at 5 am isn't THAT bad...

Today started off better than most mornings: my alarm went off at 5 and I actually was able to get myself out of bed to get to the gym! As I am not a morning person, this was a huge thing for me. I rolled out of bed, chugged some water, had some coffee, grabbed my Kindle and iPod and was out the door by 5:30. I was pretty motivated and excited to hop on the treadmill. I don't want to admit this but I have been EXTREMELY lazy when it comes to marathon training. I've had a really hard time finding the motivation I needed to get my butt going - this shouldn't be an issue, since I'm running for Dana-Farber. Thinking about the patients should be MORE than enough motivation. Unfortunately, my brain has hidden the "if those patients can deal with cancer, you can run a few miles" thoughts with "you're lazy, sit on the couch and nap." I'm not proud to admit that but hey, I was able to take a pivotal first step in the right direction today!

Anyway... I hopped on the treadmill and cranked out a decent 5 miles (decent for someone who has gained a lot of weight and not trained nearly as hard as she should have). I hate treadmills but it was a much safer than trying to run outdoors in the snow/ice storm that decided to invade MA today. Typically I am bored after 5 minutes on a treadmill and quit, convincing myself that I'm "sick" or that I "hurt something." However, today I brought my Kindle and was able to keep myself entertained the entire time. I've never been someone who could read on a treadmill - I tried it once before and it was frustrating and annoying. I never understood how people could prop up a book and read while running. However, I did not have any issues today! I guess if you have a thin Kindle and change the font to make it bigger, it's not hard to crank out both a few miles as well as a couple of chapters. Thank you, Dennis Lehane, for distracting me with your entertaining books - I didn't even have time to remember that I despises treadmills!

That's all for now. Now that pre-req classes are done and over with (hooray for some time off before grad school officially starts), running/training is going to be my life. Hopefully I'll have the energy to keep updating this thing!