Today I ventured to the gym after work to do 5 miles (that was my goal) before heading home. A little background information about my relationship with the gym and people at the gym. Unless you are already my friend outside the gym, I'm not going to make friends with you. I smile when smiled at, and I'm polite, but I don't strike up conversations with the person on the treadmill beside of me. It goes along with the whole dazed out thing, if I'm talking to someone I can't daze out therefore my gym time is less enjoyable. If you are already my friend and you go to my gym, I still love you and will not ignore you :)
So today, I walk into the gym with my headphones on before I even got inside, because I was honestly pumped to get right on a machine.. but instead of swiping my card like I usually do, I'm waiting in line behind someone who is filling out a "Hello my name is" card. I smiled because I realized it was invite a friend week and they had to wear a nametag. Nope, wrong. Apparently it was, "We want to get to know all our members by name week, so everyone has to wear a nametag". So the lady hands me a nametag and asks me to write my name and my hometown. Seriously? Talk about a loaded question... I was born in one town, grew up in another, went to school in another, and lived here for a few years. I decided the pen tip was too fat to write all that so I put the one I live in now... I figured that made me the most boring person in the gym and no one would bother me while I was dazed out with my music. :)
I then came across these things in the next hour...
A guy who looked like he stepped off the production of Grease... right down to the short shorts and tight shirt... gross.
There were actually two trainers I was missing out on... one had a necklace on, so he received the name of jewelry trainer... the other (that I always forget about) I decided looks like a boyfriend from college, so he gets the name of ex-boyfriend look-alike trainer.
I went through a number of people on the machine beside of me today, apparently they couldn't keep up with my endurance ;) The first person was normal, they listened to music didn't look over too many times, but then they walked off without cleaning the machine. Okay first off that's gross, but not my point. They were wearing a nametag! Way to make yourself be remembered as the gross person who didn't clean off the machine, by name & hometown!
So the second person gets on, and she is lacking headphones, which always makes for an interesting time because I am well aware you can hear my music if you are standing next to me... I typically turn it down if the person next to me doesn't have headphones but there were more machines around and she chose to stand next to me, so she chose to listen to my music. Apparently she wasn't a fan of "Hannah Montana's Hoedown" song... because after staring at me about 50 times, she left.
Next was a guy in about his 30's who got on the machine, and after about 2 minutes, starting leaning over watching my tv. So, this is what I don't get... every tv gets the same station, if you don't like what you are watching, you are allowed to change the station, it would be much more appreciated than you falling on top of me from leaning too far watching my tv. At this point, I feel really strange watching my tv together with this stranger so I glance around the gym... Then I noticed the guy in front of me had written his name really big on his name tag, pretty bold if you ask me. Then I read his name, "TROUBLE", now I'm jealous that I wasn't that clever. So for the next 18 minutes of what I had left I spent the time trying to come up with some other names for myself this week for my nametags. I haven't thought of anything clever yet, so if you do, let me know. :)
So lastly, and my 2 favorite parts, I am waiting on my trainer before I leave so I can schedule a session, and I am staring out into space (ipod still on) and this guy walks up beside me and asks me what happened. I look in the direction he is looking and realized he is staring at a large tv on the wall across the room. From what I can see it says "Breaking News" with a truck upside down. I really want to look at this guy and say, I believe there is a truck upside down and it's breaking news... but because I feel he wouldn't appreciate my scarcasim, I just smile and shrug my shoulders and say, "Don't know".
The last part was my absolute favorite because it was we love members week, they had a huge food spread out for all the members. I was asked by 5-6 trainers to stay and enjoy some food, which I make a run for it saying I have to be somewhere. The only thing I could picture was all those sweaty people, working out on all those machines, not cleaning them, and then digging into that food...hello community of germs.
Stay tuned for more of Stacie's Training Adventures... :D