gym

Whose cruel joke was it to place so many mirrors in the gym? Do I really need to see what I look like as I’m on the treadmill. I’m not looking at myself thinking “good form, nice stride.” I’m thinking “wow, that’s what I look like when I run? Oh my gosh, I sweat there??” Today I was in the corner, right where 2 mirrors met. The angles those mirrors showed…wow. I’m at the gym so that I’ll want to look at myself in the mirror later. Don’t need to see myself as I’m trying to get to that point. Thanks though, 24-hour fitness. Plus, the mirrors lead to lots of uncomfortable moments. I ended up making eye contact with this girl a couple rows back, who was working out on the elliptical machine. It was one of those accidental things, where I think we were both just looking around. And then we kept making eye contact. It was weird. It's like, I don't want to stare at myself. But if you look around, you make weird eye contact. Where are you supposed to look?? I ended up just looking down. Oh, there was also a problem with the fact that my ear phones kept falling out. Do I have misshaped ear tubes? Or maybe my head wobbles too much when I walk? I didn't think it did, but maybe. Or maybe my ears sweat. Is that even possible? The stupid things wouldn't stay in. So then I am trying to walk and hold them in, and that looks awkward. Here I am holding in my ear phones, making weird eye contact with people. Maybe I'll show up with giant dj ear phones: the kind that encompass the entire ear! That wouldn't be weird, right? (sidenote that only a few people will understand: when writing "dj ear phones" I wrote "djk ear phones". I guess writing about awkward situations and using the letters "dj" it just seemed natural to add the "k". Oops.)

I started out my routine a little differently today. Normally I either do the treadmill or the bike for the entire time. But yesterday I was hanging out with my family to watch football, and my dad is talking about his new gym. He and my mom recently joined Golds gym, so my dad, who has gone for 3 days, fancies himself a fitness guru. “So, I do trip sevens plus a five at trip six and a seven on the stair stepper.” I think we all stared at him for about a minute and a half before my sister’s boyfriend says “I’m sorry, was that English?” We all burst into laughter. Mind you, this is only the Boyfriend’s second time hanging out with my parents, so it was a risky move. However, in my family, if you don’t crack jokes and jump in to make fun of funny situations, we’ll smell fear and pounce on you. So, my dad tries to explain that it’s gym talk, and we are just so uneducated for not knowing. “Trip sevens plus a five” means three intervals at seven minutes each plus 1 interval of five minutes. “At trip six and a seven” meant the level. “Why didn’t you just say ’26 six minutes’?” my sister asked. And again, my dad acts like we’re all just ignorant. It was hilarious!

So today I decided to try out the stair stepper. The whole time I’m laughing thinking about my dad’s trip sevens. I only lasted for three minutes on that machine. I completely underestimated the trip sevens.