Honest to God, I am not becoming some kind of fitness obsessed individual. As I look back through some posts, I realize I mention my little routine frequently, but I swear I am not obsessive about it.
It’s just more that I have absolutely nothing else going on. Nothing. There’s just no time to do anything else.
So that little now-almost-three-hour chunk of my day is a big part of my life. Outside of work, it’s actually ALL of my life, such that it is. So here is more about it.
Aside: That would be so less pathetic if I actually saw any results. But anyway.
This week, I’m back on the 2-10 shift at work and I’ve opted to continue to wake up at 7:50 and do the routine and then have a little span of time midday instead of running like a mad woman from the pool to the elevators (which is a blog post in waiting, but other things keep coming up), to the apartment to grab lunch and head to work.
The little fitness center is becoming a more popular place. Whereas I used to go for days without seeing someone, generally speaking, I now come across one person maybe 3-4 days a week. There is one guy who runs on the treadmill earlier than I do and I no longer have to go pester the people to open up the room at 8:30, which a sign proclaims it to open at 6:30.
Monday, the room was open but that guy wasn’t there. However, another guy was. One I’d never seen before. He was there all week.
He's black, so he's probably from Sub-Saharan Africa. He took a call and I didn't recognize the language. There are FEW black people here. I mean, in six months, I've been maybe three. I don’t know why that is.
With few exceptions (women), I don’t pay any attention or talk to anyone else in the room. I mean, for one, there usually isn’t anyone else, so it’s not a problem. But I put on the MP3 and listen to five “Thru the Bible” lectures and pretty much shut out the world. On the elliptical and bike, I close my eyes.
[Although I did have visual entertainment for two days running. The apartment guys set out live traps for the rats that were eating the greenery and caught one two days in a row, so I had more than a brick wall to watch. I watched rats in a cage for two hours.]
So I have no plans to pay any attention to this guy, or any other. But I couldn’t help but notice that when he moved from the treadmill to the weights, he started making LOTS of noise. Like grunting noises, which seemed unnecessary. Now, I know some people do this while exerting themselves physically, but this just seemed a bit fake, like he was trying to get me to look. I never did. He did smile and wave when he left and I smiled and waved back (I'd moved to the weights by then and I can't close my eyes on those.)
The second day, he was there when I arrived and another guy also came in, the more-or-less regular guy who jogs maybe 20 minutes and then leaves. The whole time both men were in the room, we all just silently worked out, doing our individual things.
When the jogger guy left – and I am not kidding, the door hadn’t even closed all the way -- the grunting resumed.
Nothing like “UURRGH”s breaking into your podcast on a regular basis. I swear, boys are silly.
Yesterday, Grunter wasn’t in when I arrived, so I breathed a sigh of relief. But not more than a half an hour in, he showed up again and got on the bike first, right next to me (there’s only one). It was the first I’ve seen him on the bike, but then, it could be the first thing he does. He is quite obviously a bodybuilder, although he has a huge belly to go along with his huge ass. He’s probably in there two hours a day.
But having him come in later mucked up some of my routine. (I try to do sit ups and no way will I do those with men in the room.) Fortunately, while I was on the leg thing he got off the bike (which is what I do after the legs) and moved to the elliptical, so I was free to continue.
When I got over there, oh, it was go utterly disgusting. He’d sweated a bucket full and just left it all over the machine.
Seriously, people, why do that? I hope he saw my disgusted face and heard my (completely involuntary, I swear) “EWW!” I was so utterly grossed out.
Friday I didn’t see him, but could have been because I went in really late. It was my day off and I paid my cable bill first, then took my duvet cover (finally) to be washed before making pancakes. Which, because you need to know, turned out much better than before, and it might be because I used expat baking power instead of Indonesian baking powder.
So I was in there late. Thought I was going to revert back to having the place to myself but THREE guys followed me in. Although I’d never seen them before that day, I’d noticed them in the lobby – looking like they were heading out for a run – after dropping my stuff off at the 5-11.
Not sure who they are or what, but I swear I caught some Spanish. And one of the other women came in, too – she usually works out in the afternoons but I see her some mornings. So it was a full house today. And one of the male trio also left sweat on the bike.
I really hope it was an unusual week this week. I’m wondering if Grunter was on vacation or something and changed up his regular time – I know someone who does power lifting usually comes in the afternoon and it could be him. Those three possibly Spanish guys I seriously wondered if were just visiting or something.
Time will tell what happens in the growing-in-popularity fitness center. I really don’t like the crowds and am not sure what’s brought on the popularity.
It’s entirely possible that the lot of them are new to the building and I am going to have to face the fact that I don’t have the place to myself anymore.
I do recognize that all the employees know me as the person who is in there every day. They see me and make weight-lifting motions as they say “Fitness?” whenever they see me. It’s kind of comical.
And I need to figure out what else I can do to my routine to actually help make some sort of physical change. I read some article in the NZ Herald mentioning how runners don’t really lose weight but gain belly and it depressed me.
While Grunter was in there and I was on the weights, he was in my line of sight as he used the exercise ball thing. We have two of those, in different sizes, and I’ve no idea of how to use them.
I recognize that those things are versatile and I should try to incorporate them. Limber, I am not.
So, after Grunter left, I figured I’d give it a shot. He’d done some kind of stretchy thing that looked plausible, and I tried to mimic it.
As God is my witness (the only one, fortunately), I fell off.
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