~Sunday~ Oh glorious sleeping in, I appreciated you so much this morning.
I went to the gym at around 2:30, where I did 60 minutes of cardio work on the elliptical machine for an 1162-calorie burn. I really wasn’t “feeling it” today, and the inner dialog started right at about the 20-minute mark with, “I’m going to cut this down to 30 minutes, and move over to the treadmill for the other 30 minutes.”
At 30 minutes: “Okay, I can do another ten minutes. 40 minutes is a good round number.” I was working at a good pace today, such that I was well over 500 calories already by that point. “I’m tired, though. I can’t keep this up.”
At 40 minutes: “Five more minutes and I’ll do what I did yesterday. And at 45 minutes yesterday, I’d burned 825 calories. Today, I’m already at 8:50 in 40 minutes. I can keep going for five more minutes.”
At the 45-minute mark: “Yes, I’m tired, but really, 15 more minutes. Just don’t think about it. Keep going.” And I did.
At 48 minutes, “I’m going to break the 1000-calorie mark right at about 50 minutes. I’m exhausted. I’ll stop then.”
At the 50-minute mark: “It’s only 10 more minutes. They’ll pass before you know it. Just take the pace down some.”
At 60 minutes: “Thank god. Good job. Glad I kept at it.”
All that self-talk is just crazy, but that’s how it went down, and often does.
Now, I’m going to ask you readers who know me, or who feel you’ve come to know me reading here, for your opinion on a matter. I would like some insight into a situation that actually happened at the gym yesterday, but which I didn’t capture then. Also, it’s not the first time this has happened, and it’s been with the same person involved.
So, there was this guy there yesterday who I’d guess is somewhere between 23-30 years old. He’s probably about 6 feet tall, has about a 30-inch waist, wears glasses, has short hair, and wears ear buds while he works out. He looks nothing other than a healthy, young man. We got on our elliptical machines at about the same time, and I set mine for 60 minutes, even though I only ended up doing 45 minutes, as you may have read in yesterday’s entry.
He stood on the elliptical machine, which is the kind that has handles with which to work your arms, too, and has what are essentially pedals that go up and down, not the type with slides that go back and forth like skis. He leaned forward with his arms crossed, put his elbows up on the handles, and then rested his chin on up on his crossed arms.
He pretty much stayed in this position for over thirty minutes, with about an equal portion of time spent just standing absolutely still, and when he did move his feet it was maybe about an inch up and the inch back down—never enough to make a complete step, which would probably be about five inches up and back down.
On the three TVs in front him, the one to the left had on news, the one directly in front of him had on a professional tennis match, and the one to his right had on ladies basketball. From what I could tell, he pretty much exclusively watched the tennis match, while looking around the gym every now and then.
What I want to know is this:
- Why would someone go to the gym and pretty much just lean on an exercise machine for over thirty minutes and watch TV?
- Why would the fact that somebody does that bother me so much? (It really, really, annoys me.)
What are your thoughts? Open the kimono, please.
My houseguest, Kevin (av8rdude), and I headed down to Flex at about 4:15, where they were having a free Labor Day cookout. Kevin dropped me off and went down to Rapid Fitness to work out. Joe joined me shortly thereafter.
Considering we ate in a bar, the food was pretty decent, and it consisted of: Chicken legs covered with delicious barbecue sauce and cooked on the grill out behind the bar; potato salad; coleslaw; potato chips; a pretzel, Dorito, and Cheez-It mix; some Church’s Chicken Honey Biscuits; and a choice of chocolate chip or M&M-chip cookies for dessert.
Kevin joined us after his workout, and by the time it began approaching 7:00, it was obvious to the three of us that we couldn’t just keep on drinking until the scareyoke started at 9:00. Since Kevin was still in his workout clothes, he took my car and went home for a costume change, and Joe and I went to Helios to hang out for a couple of hours.
We stopped at Snoopy’s on the way back over to Flex, where the guy at the window said, “Does that shirt mean what I think it means?”
I thought he meant that I was gay, but wanting to hear him say it, I said, “Well that depends on what you think it means.”
“It’s not New Kids on the Block, is it?!” he responded.
Laughing I replied, “No. It’s just gay. Guys in the rainbow colors, you know.”
He laughed, finished taking Joe’s order and then looked at me, “Is this together?” he asked before starting my order.
To which I replied, “No, we’re not that gay.”
Flex was absolutely jammed tonight, as expected, it being a holiday tomorrow and all. Although there were a lot of non-regulars there, there were a lot of regulars, too. Among them being Eric who, although there are now over 70,000 songs in the “new” karaoke system, still has to bring his own CDs from which to sing obscure songs that usually take some kind of drama to set up in the karaoke machine and which nobody pays any attention to while he sings them. Why?
Glenn and Curtis—and his boyfriend JB—made an appearance tonight, compliments of social media, which is fun when used that way. Henry was also out tonight, who I hadn’t seen in forever, and who’s always a pleasure to see. At one point, he said, “I’m behind on your column,” which made me smile as that’s what Bob calls my blog, too.
Joe sang Sweet Caroline, which was quite the crowd-pleaser.
There were a couple of singers there, who no matter what song they sing, it’s not going to be a crowd-pleaser, and while one such person was singing a song that seemed to go on forever, toward the end of it I said looking down at my BlackBerry, “That song was so long, I’ve got to have a message by now.”
It had been a long night, of mostly drinking, and by midnight I was ready to head home. Kevin and I left Joe there, with the intention of Kevin dropping me off at home and he going back down to Legends, but on the way home, he decided to call it a night, too.