Category: Tales from the Stinky End of the Gym

Travel Fail

Bobbie1 Comment

Ok, tomorrow is the beginning of the rest of my life. Or something.

I write to you from the relative comfort that is the Embassy Suites in Jacksonville, where I am having massive guilt and am a little scared at my dearth of progress. Having lost two weekends of bike time I rented a bike here in Jacksonville.

A bike that I was not able to pick up.

To be fair, the weekend was to be packed with wedding-related activities (and it was) but I thought I’d be able to squeeze in a couple of hours on the bike. Having lost my luggage twice though (enroute to Geneva and coming in to Jacksonville) and not slept for 24 hours upon landing in Jacksonville (I was a zombie), I decided that getting up and getting on a bike was going to be unlikely.

Someone had reminded me when I rented the bike that it would be no problem to get around, as Jacksonville is all flat. This is so very true. Jacksonville is all flat. In the section we were in, this means you can get your car up to a hefty 50mph in the 30mph lane and since there is no official bike lanes anywhere that I could see, I could just imagine my tired-jetlagged-rickety self on a borrowed bike getting smucked thirty or forty times by the varying products of Ford or Chevy. 

Therefore, the bike was never picked up. Off to plan B, which was to abuse the recumbent bike in the gym. However, in this particular Embassy Suites we had a Mary Kay convention and a Fish and Wildlife convention and some sorts of sport convention, and the gym was packed both mornings. I had to settle for a run, which does not compare to the mileage I’m supposed to have done. I’ve got ten weeks left to get from the 51mi I was at to the 120mi I need. That means I need to increment by 7miles per week– this is suddenly getting very very real.

Achiever

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In my fantasy world, this post is so-called “Overachiever” because I’ve totally been hitting all of my marks in training and doing a kick-ass job and Lance Armstrong should totally be scared.

In the real world, this is not really the case. (Disappointing, right?)

I did 51 miles in a day. 2 weeks ago. Then I went to my mom’s house (disastrous), and while I faithfully Spin-Class’d and gym’d and all that, I didn’t really ride my bike this weekend (hello, High Wind Advisory and Rain!). Instead I went back on the gym bike and did 19 miles in an hour, on level 8. Yes, yes, lots of calories burned but not what I should be doing.

Now I’m on a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, and then Jacksonville, Florida. At some point I need to get on a bike and do something but that will not happen in Geneva and while I’ve rented it for JAX the likelihood that I’ll get 55 miles in at a pop is nil. The plan is to get 30 miles in, in two days in a row. And still be sociable.

At this point, my goal is to do it, and to not be the last person doing it. That strategy has worked well in the past 🙂

Slipping my Cogs

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This weekend I haven’t been on my bike. At all.

My last ‘bike time’ was in the gym, next to various sweaty persons and watching the local news on subtitle. This is bad, because the stress at work is *phenomenal* right now and what I really need is to ride the endorphin wave, not my couch cushions.

Naturally, what I do is pack up and off to my mom’s, home of endless meatballs and macaroni and cheese and couch-potato-age. Oh, and Pizookie Pie at the local BJ’s restaurant. I did but one 4-mile run and the rest of the time my only exercise was to pull the plate closer.

Guilt! Guilt!

Yet Another Event

Bobbie2 Comments

I signed up for the Danskin Triathlon.

Last Tuesday (yes, I’m blogging about something a week old, get over it) I sat at my computer, angst-ridden and hitting “refresh”, so I could be one of the participants in this August’s Danskin Women’s Triathlon in Seattle. Apparently it sells out right quick and I had promised not one but TWO ladies I know I would do it, and so I have signed on to Do It.

Well.

I can tell you authoritatively that unlike my training for the Trek Women’s last year, the 12 miles on the bike are not making me nervous. I did 51 last weekend and it is true what they say about the best way to get better at riding your bike: ride your bike. Ride your bike. And, ride your bike.

However this means I will need to get up early on Fridays to add swimming back into the regimen. I signed on to the only gym within miles of my work that has a pool, now only if they’d clean it occasionally.

I wonder when I’ll stop signing up for these things, and what I am trying to prove to myself.

Diversion

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I have two blogs: this is my public one. Yes, there is a whole other blog out there, one that has been carefully crafted (ok, not all that carefully) and maintained (although not terribly faithfully) for five years (okay, four and a half). That is the blog I usually dish about life and love and romance and sex and coworkers and occasionally religious derivatives and chemistry and biology and movies. Sometimes really weird combinations of them.

That blog is not this blog. This blog is usually about workouts and work, more the former than the latter, because it’s my public blog and as such it shouldn’t mention all of the things one avoids discussing in public (e.g., sex, politics, religion, and money. Or having sex with a politician for money in a church. Or something.)

Therefore, the urge to write on this blog of things not appropriate to it is, on occasion, overwhelming. For example, I’d like to blog about how I haven’t yet participated in the Rides of March (aka Taxes). I’d like to blog about the atrocious parking at the Braevern, the happy hour fare and fair to be found at John Howies Steakhouse, the simply staggeringly awful week I’ve had at work, the other job I’m applying for, the angst-ridden time I’m having attempting to find a simple pearl grey dress to satisfy two weddings. I would totally blog about it… but not here.

No, here you are to hear of my workouts, of which I have not done one today. I went to spin class  yesterday (and did some endurance riding the day before) and have this to say of my gym:

People appear to be leaving it.

It started with the Hottie and the regular Spin Class Lanky dude. Those two have been missing for over a week and someone else has taken the Hottie’s bike and is now staring at herself in Hottie-like fashion. Two other regulars have dropped out and all that are left are the old lady with the bike on her ankle, the Napoleonic guy with longish hair (ok, so he cut it but it’s still somehow long and yet not long enough for a ponytail), the elderly man who has more musculature in his little finger than I posses in my entirety, and the bellevue housewifey with the bandana hairdo. The rest of them are new, people wafting in and out of the class who clearly cannot appreciate what Hot Teacher Eric means when he says we are going to to “jumps” today.

Other things are happening too: I was able to get a regular cardio bike of a Tuesday at 5pm. This NEVER happens. Clearly, the New Years’ Resoluters are irresolute and have waned, leaving me free to watch CNBC in peace. I hope it lasts through the summer, you get better service and less stink at an unfull gym. Also, I needs must check out the pool: chances are if they’ve cleaned it lately I can swim in it again and not be reminded of Puget Sound’s visibility. That is to say, you don’t want to go swimming in a pool that belongs to a frequently crowded gym.

We have a long bike ride planned this weekend — 46 miles and mostly flattish terrain; I’m not intimidated but I am reluctant. We are entering the phase of training where I feel inept, like I can’t possibly do as well as I need to. That’s okay, I feel like that at work lately so it’s nice to know there’s a consistent theme. Despite all of this exertion I continue to eat slightly under my own mass in chocolate and so I haven’t lost weight, although my mother noticed a shift (“Oh! You’ve lost weight!” she exclaimed at dinner the other night. I hadn’t. I then promptly gained 2 pounds).  In my experience this exercise in apathy will end sometime around May where I will realize that I have but five weeks to go and decide that this is proof that I can fight aging.

Which brings me back to the discussion I want to have on the difficulties of finding a simple grey dress for a wedding. But I can’t blog about that here.

Smug

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36 miles, no wall, leisurely pace (yet still faster than the weekend previous!) and I didn’t walk any of the downhills.

Oh hadn’t I mentioned that?

Yeah so me? Not so much with the whole biking down the hill thing: biking down hills scares the poo out of me, because it is speed and it is not easily and quickly controlled with braking. In fact if you brake hard you end up flying over your handlebars like some git who got her bike tire stuck in railroad tracks and then you end up in the ER paying a $250 deductible, $100 copay, and another 10% of the total bill (ok, so I’m just a little bitter about that).

The weekend I hit the wall I walked a lot of the downhills (which adds to a dejected mood) because what with rain and steepness I was scared. This last weekend we got some cool, crisp, and clear weather and I rode those back brakes like a grandma: but I rode them.

However, I am at a disadvantage: I ride with two guys. These guys have leg muscles that make mine look darned petite (and people, I’m 5’10” and not what one would call “thin” or “wispy”), and they get going, and my new nickname is “Waldo” because they get going and stop and turnaround and I’m not there because my pace isn’t quite as fast as theirs.

I’m going to invest in a red and white striped bike jersey, if I can find one.

Completely Unnecessary Spin Class Update

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You guys! you guys!!!

So the hottie wasn’ there — no! And the jock she’s usually with (sort of– they sit at opposite ends) spent the entire time in class looking at the floor. I figured it out! He looks in the mirror, so he can watch her! Neat, huh?

Ooh. I hope they didn’t have a spat. Cuz that would suck.

Spin class continues to be only mildly entertaining. It’s about 20% regulars and even I am less enchanted with Eric the Hot Instructor than I once was. I will note his music is still good and there were actual droplets of sweat involved in this last workout. I will also note I’m the only one who shows up to class with visible bruises (mine are from the weekend rides). I am wondering how long before one of the other class members comes to ask me if he beats me because he loves me.

This week I plan to add running back in as well as another half mile in the pool, as I have just committed to do the Danskin Triathlon in August (or is it September?). At any rate: I shall be in front of my machine at 9am sharp on 9-March to enroll. Go me!

I don’t want no subs…

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Oh, Eric! (Eric is the name of my crazy hot spin class instructor). Don’t ever leave me again!

Last night we had somebody. I don’t know what her name was but she had short blond hair and more extra poundage than I and yet somehow she did very punishing things to us on the bike. She had faux country music playing (Jessica Simpson’s “Boots Are Made For Walking”, anyone?) and firmly believed that the butt and the seat should flirt constantly but never, ever, actually meet.

The only redeeming thing about class was to discover that apparently the blonde Hottie and the Tall Lanky Spin Class Guy, who may or may not be in some form of relationship, are not sitting next to each other anymore AND they each filled their water bottles separately. Also, the Frat Boys were nowhere to be seen and have been replaced by an anemic-looking 20-something who did his durned best, as he put it in discussion with me after class, to not throw up.

Eric! Please come back! I will not make fun of the 10% techno you play and instead cherish the 90% Alt. I will never ever ever again complain about intervals and hills. I will not correct your knowledge of music ever again. I will not skip class ever again. Please, please come back…

Social Studies, Part II

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Spin Class offers me 60 minutes of physical torture by an aforementioned hot, bald instructor who seems to think that intervals… while on a hill… to exceptionally good and varied music… are fun.

Well, then.

I will agree that they are fun, provided you are in *my* spin class.

Oh! The drama!

The drama of my spin class is second only to Telenovelas, spanish (Mexican, specifically) soap operas where the acting vies with the clothing for “worst” lists.

Last week, we saw our gearhead making eyes and conversation at the hottie blonde who spends all of her time watching herself in the mirror — until her water bottle was filled by the SpinClass Regular (who is, it must be noted, significantly taller — though I would not personally agree significantly hotter). Last night Gearhead positioned himself exactly opposite Hottie, and also in line with Regular, so as to watch the two of them. When he wasn’t bent over listening to “Renegades of Funk” by Rage Against the Machine on Level 4 2minutes Hill at 100rpm, he was in fact eyeballing the two of them, as I am wont to do, attempting to figure out the nature of their relationship.

Regular will never hold a candle to the mirror, for her, as far as I can see.

We had another packed class, with a male person who can only be classed as Junior to me (because he was so clearly so: look sonny I get that you think I’m cute and I get that I’m on the bike right next to you and I totally get that we have the same taste in music — but– I’m not so much for conversation that is punctuated with “ya know” and “i like said”) taking every opportunity to talk about the music, grade, my gear, and clippie shoes.

We had an excellent sound track, which normally I’d class a 7 out of 10 but this was an overwhelming 9.3.

And we have some new faces I hope to see in future classes: the Frat Boy, who is clearly in Spin Class because beer has caught up to him. His Buddy, who is clearly in Spin Class because Frat Boy has convinced him you get hotties that way (FB and Buddy made a play for the Blonde Hottie and got totally and irrevocably shut down when she completely ignored them) (They then spent 10 minutes pre-class talking to the Frat Girl that was there, who I would say is charitably pretty). The Old Gent who is there to Do Something About It and took, very good naturedly, to the music of the class. And then we have the Proto-Geek, whom I’ve seen on occasion who knows all of the Alternative and most of the Electronica and is at a complete loss when it comes to the Grunge and Rap, but, I think, is flirting with my Hot Instructor.

It’s amazing how much you can see when you’re avoiding the singing, searing pain in your thighs on a bike.

Social Studies

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I get to spin class early enough to get the BEST BIKE. The best bike is in the corner, so it’s not too near the bikes next to it. It’s ideally situated across from the mirrors so you can see the entire class. It’s situated such that you can totally check out the instructor, who is scathingly hot (and bald).

It’s also excellent to watch people.

There’s the 50-something lady with the little bike tattoo’d on her ankle, who cheers whenever intervals come up. There’s the skinny tall elderly man, who has clearly been doing this for a while; there’s the hottie who parks herself smack next to the mirrors and WATCHES HERSELF THE ENTIRE TIME. I can’t blame her, if I had that body I’d watch myself the entire time too. There’s the spin-class regular (tall, skinny) who overdoes everything and goes to fill her water bottle even at expense of his timely start. There’s the shorter, just-as-hot spin class regular (with his own official jerseys) who is attempting something with her and just discovered last Monday that she’s already got something (sort of, but not really) for the water-bottle-filler.

There’s the executive who hasn’t been in 2 months and yet expects nothing to have changed, there’s the overweight Microsoftian who is Doing Something About It. There’s the housewife who is there to keep in shape, and the one who just arrived on the scene to start keeping in shape. There’s the couple of college kids who can probably eat an extra 3 bowls of Lucky Charms with every meal as a result of this class, and there’s the elderly man whose Doctor has clearly told him to Do Something.

And then there’s me. I still sing to all the songs, and I’m sure it’s an eye-rolling thing for them.