I Belong to a Gym?

Josh and I took the plunge and finally jumped on the discounted gym membership that is offered through my work. For anyone who knows my history with gyms, this may come as a shock. It has come as a shock to me as well.

I've always hated gyms. I hate all the machines, especially those for cardio. I will run ten miles in hail before I will run two on a treadmill, I have no interest in using an elliptical, and I don't even know how to use half the weight machines. I prefer to get my sweat on under a big blue (or dark) sky and that has always been final.

Me and a big blue sky

But recently I have gotten very into classes. And when I learned that the yoga classes I take weekly cost $18 a pop, I decided that even if I make it to one class a week at the gym, I'll be getting my money's worth. So I signed up. And Josh, who has been so interested in weight-training recently that he almost bought a weight bench for our 700 sq. foot 1 bedroom apartment, signed up with me.

Our membership started yesterday so, because I am not ready to cheat on the great outdoors, I went for a 4.5 mile run with Hadley after work and then headed to the gym with Josh. We had never even been inside it before so we did a little exploring. They had two studios for classes, one of which was dark with black lights and spin machines. Sign me up for that.

Having just run and not wanting to make my legs sore for Saturday's long run, I mostly just explored the gym and played around on some of the arm machines. I also did 200 crunches on one of those machines where you hook your knees and feet in and then lie backwards, fighting gravity with every crunch. And then I foam rolled and stretched. All the while Josh went to town working out his legs. He did like two arm workouts but that is all that I managed to capture.

On our run I told Hadley that I was scared of regretting joining Gold's. I am now committed to pay for this membership for a year so if I go on hating the gym then I'm SOL. But I am optimistic. My arms and my core could use some toning and strengthening and I am hoping to get in their asap for one of those psychadelic spin classes!


Tell Me: Do you belong to a gym? What do you use it for? Do you record your workouts/what machines you use and for how long?