Working out….

195.4lbs

Well, Saturday morning I woke up early and decided I should go to the gym to work out. In the past (pre-cycling days) this was a normal occurrence. In addition to going to the gym 2-3 times during the week at lunch, I used to go every Saturday morning.
Early Saturdays were a nice time to go since it’s never that crowded, I could get a good workout in, stop by Starbucks for a coffee and still be home before Deb got up and moving.

The funny thing is that I never used to feel self conscious going to the gym. I was there so regularly I actually knew some of the people, I had my routine down and I knew how much weight to put on each of the stations to get a good workout while not dropping anything on my face…..

This time though, was different. I haven’t been to the gym in quite a while and although, they keep pulling my dues out of the checking account every month, I hadn’t felt compelled to actually show up in a long time. So long in fact, that I felt weird…..You know, like at a party where you don’t know anyone and you’re not sure you were even invited….

And of course it starts even before you leave the house. What do I need, do I have a towel, water, where the heck did I put my membership card the last time I used it?
And then, once you walk in and hand the kid (seriously, he couldn’t have been more than 12) your card, he scans it, sees just how long it’s been since you’ve been and makes an innocent comment like….“you know we have completely different cards now…you can get yours updated if you come back during the week”

Anyway, I decided to start with the treadmill…..figuring that since I’ve been riding a lot this should be fairly painless……WRONG!
It wasn’t long before, convinced I’d done the equivalent of a marathon, that I started pushing buttons on the display to try to figure out how far I had gone…(btw, do you have any idea how hard it is to run on that little belt, gasp for oxygen, wipe the sweat that’s running into your eyes and push the button on the display at the same time – it’s hard trust me)
Well, it turns out that I had been running for almost 10 minutes and had gone almost 1 mile….are you freaking kidding me….only 1 mile???

So, after another 10 minutes of lumbering along, huffing like a freight train going over the continental divide and sweating enough to need my own cleanup crew, I made it 2 miles and thankfully pushed the button to stop that stupid belt before it flung me into the mirrors behind me. (exactly why are there mirrors behind the treadmill anyway, it’s not like I can look behind me to check my form….I can barely keep upright as it is)

From the treadmill, I moved over the weight room. Again, I used to be perfectly comfortable in here. Even with all the big muscle-headed guys grunting and yelling and lifting enough weight to bend the bar I was never really intimidated.

Today though, things were different.

How much weight should I start with, where should I start, should I use dumbbells or the barbells? Did that guy just snicker when I grabbed the smaller dumbbells? What if I drop it? What if I get it stuck on my chest and need help? What if my elbow goes out and it hits me in the face (hey, it could happen)…all of these things were going through my head as I began. Slowly though, things came back to me and although I wasn’t able to use nearly the same weight I had in the past, I was able to avoid the old lady’s rack with the cute little pink weights…..

About 30 minutes later, I was done. And by done I mean, I could no longer lift my arms, turn my head or even push the button on the water fountain to get a drink….so I decided to head home. (I actually thought of stopping at Starbucks, but the thought of climbing out of my truck and then having to reach up to put my money on the counter, not to mention carrying a venti coffee all the way back across the parking lot, dissuaded me from that idea, so home I went)

Well, here I am 2 days later and brushing my teeth and washing my hair still generate huge amounts of pain and the requisite whinning that goes with it. Putting in my contacts requires a sheer force of will since I haven’t been able to figure out how to lay my contact lenses on the counter and slam my head down hard enough to get them to bounce up into my eye…..(the pain from trying did take my mind off the fact that the entire rest of my body hurts)

They say this is supposed to be good for me…..I’m not sure I’m buying that…..