Monday Update

Good Monday, everybody! Did you have a good weekend? How about those major sporting events leading up to an even more major sporting event? You know which ones I’m talking about, the ones that involve a ball that, despite its name, looks nothing like a foot? Yep, not really something I follow either.

I’ve been using my apartment complex’s fitness center since last fall, off and on, and as you know, I’ve been hitting it more regularly since then. The problem is, ever since the beginning of the year, it’s packed. When I say packed, I mean there are lines for machines, even broken ones.

To give you a run down, there are two treadmills, one of which has a loose belt. There are two stair machines, of which I never really use. There is a stationary bike that has a seat with a broken positioning pin, so it won’t stay higher than the base level, and a recumbent bike that actually works well. There are two Elliptical machines that I would assume work fine, but since I’m not coordinated enough for them, I couldn’t tell you. Finally, there is a weight machine that doesn’t have any numbers on the weights, so if you’re a rookie like me, you don’t know if you’re going to wrench your arm out of socket.

Towards the end of 2011, “crowded” meant someone is on the treadmill, and someone is on the elliptical, or perhaps someone is working with the weights. Now, when I walk in, and it doesn’t matter the hour, almost every machine is full. I like to go in and do 30 on the treadmill, then 30 on the bike, but now I’m lucky if I can get to either. Not once, this past week, was I able to do both. Two days, I was able to do the treadmill, one day I was able to use the bike, and the rest of the time when I dropped by, everything was in use.

I’m not a fan of New Years. Personally, I’ve been dinking around in there since last fall, but I didn’t get serious until around Christmas, and I didn’t really start tracking until this month, so I don’t have much room to talk. I’m not saying everyone in there is there because of a New Year’s Resolution, but when my wife is seeing someone in skinny pants and a beret trying to use the weight machine, and I’m seeing people driving a half block of apartments to the center, and recognizing the first week of Couch to 5K being done on the treadmills, you tell me what I’m supposed to think.

So, with that being said, this week on the recumbent bike I did 3.30 miles, and on the treadmill got 4.77 miles in. Since I’m not able to do much in the fitness center, I also really pushed the pushups, doing 476 over the course of last week.

With the family heading out tomorrow, I’m going to start packing clothes and trying to take advantage of the larger gym at our office complex. According to some of the people here that use it, it’s very nice and the beginning of the year surge is starting to thin out, so I’m hoping I can make it work on my way home.

I hope you all have a great week, and I’ll see you tomorrow! Tony