Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Extreme gymming

Sunday and Monday were blissful couch potato days. Yesterday, at work, I consumed countless pretzels, half a bar of chocolate, and at least 8 (I lost count after number 5) soft and mouthwatering M&M cookies (Lindsay, I share your pain...those little fellas are deadly!), that a colleague had baked and displayed in eyecatching fashion. What's up with all this food at the office??? Don't they know I have NO self-control?

I realized no exercise = gorging. So, it was back to business as usual today, which meant soldiering through 5 miles before work and hitting the gym after work.

Now, having enjoyed many a chuckle out of Roisin's gym stories, I have one of my own today.

Whatever happened to predictions that New Year Resolutioners would quit the gym in Feb-March? Not only is our local LA Fitness bursting at its seams, it seems to be adding new members every day!

My plan today was ambitious: join the BodyWorks class from 5:45 to 6:45, then jump into spinning class from 6:45-7:30. Easy enough, no? (apart from screaming quads and pounding heart, I mean). Well, as you will see, it turned out to be quite a logistical feat.

Due to the popularity of spinning class, our gym has a sign-in sheet that you are supposed to fill out 15 minutes to 1/2 hour before the class. But that's not all. You also have to dive into the class as sweaty people from the previous class are filing out, and claim your bike by throwing your towel or water bottle on it. 10 minutes before the class, all bikes are taken. You snooze, you lose.

So, that meant I had to leave Body Works class at 6:30 to mark my territory in spinning class, then return to complete the BodyWorks class.

It all would have been simple if the Body Works class was not so f#$*ing overflowing with humanity. Seriously, we were crawling all over each other...every inch of space was taken up by sweating, writhing female bodies.

Now, picture this: 20 minutes before the end of the class, we are on all fours, dumbbell in outstretched right hand, left leg stretched out behind, waiting for instructions, when this woman (let's call her X) walks in and plops down 2 inches away from my nose and proceeds to stretch herself out on all fours, forcing me to crawl nearer to the woman behind me (let's call her Y).
So, for the rest of the routine, I have my dumbbell almost shoved up X's ass and my stinky shoe dangling near Y's mouth!

Anyway, you can imagine what an ordeal it was to extricate various body parts from this tangled mess a few minutes later, to leave the class and stake my claim to a spinning bike; not to mention elbowing my way out of there at the end of the class to make it to spinning class on time (I don't like to miss the start of spinning class...I'm weird like that). The ultimate irony was that as I triumphantly lowered myself on my bike and looked around...only half the bikes were taken!
But the important thing is, all's well that ends well. I completed an hour of BodyWorks and 45 minutes of spinning and left. I tell you! Gyms are not for the faint of heart.

Hope you had a wonderful, beer-filled St. Patty's Day!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cycling class always fills up way too fast, especially if there is a good teacher. Nice job on both classes.

Abby said...

Ha, great story - and nice work staking out your territory on the double-duty day!

lauren said...

ha! I despise when classes are crowded. That is exactly how it is with the 6pm spin class at my gym. So now, I go to the 7pm one. It is so much nicer to go in and pick whichever bike I want.

X-Country2 said...

See, I'd have just gone home. :o)

Tammy said...

Yeesh! I never thought I would be so thankful for life in my tiny town.

I probably would just give it up and go home if I had to go through all that to get in a spin class.

Marlene said...

Thankfully, Spin classes are not *that* busy at my gym. I don't think I could handle that!

I'm exactly like you ... no exercise = PIGGING OUT. Ugh!

Aron said...

wooooo nice job on the double workout!

Amy said...

ugh, crowded gyms are the WORST! But they lead to pretty humorous blog posts afterwards, no? :)

Lindsay said...

haha i am all about my space i probably woulda walked out of the class if it got crowded. way to hang in there. at least you could always shove the weight up X's ass if needed!

i hate when there is delicious food at work. i always always always eat too much and feel disgusting. you already know my stance on anything involving m&m's! glad you made up for the gluttony with the hardcore workouts :)

Aileen said...

NICE! It's good to know that freakshows exist where ever you live! People are sooo very weird about space at the gym. They'll go out of their way to not be around people...which usually puts them close to YOU. And that makes no sense at all!!!