At the gym

I've written before that I'm not crazy about gyms, though it should be noted that it's the price I'm not crazy about.  With a little creativity and will power, you can get just as good a workout for free, without having to waste time driving to and from the gym.

But when the gym is free, I don't mind going.  My friend Ben called me this afternoon and invited me to his gym on a guest pass.  It had just snowed this morning and I'd been spending all day stressing over getting outside for a snowy, cold five miler, so his call was perfect timing.

This particular gym has a theater in it: a small darkened room with two rows of ellipticals and treadmills and a giant screen in front.

If the movie of the day was actually something I liked (as opposed to "Anaconda"), I could have easily spent hours running in that little room while watching the movie.  Instead I did five miles on a treadmill in the regular part of the gym:

Did five miles in 40 minutes.  Like many runners, I can't stand treadmills.  I was desperate to finish the five miles, so I kept bumping up the speed until I was at a near sprint towards the end.  I hadn't eaten much all day, and I almost fainted when I finished.

Post five miles with Ben in the background

I drank water and slowly recovered enough to hit the machines, doing sets of situps, pullups, pushups, tricep dips and dumbbell curls.  All in all, it was a pretty good workout.