Fitness Room

It's been awhile since I've been able to drive my daughter to school then on to the YMCA for an early morning workout. There are a couple of reasons that I like the early workouts, I get sweaty first thing in the morning so I only take one shower and secondly the fitness room isn't crowded.

The average age in the workout room is sixty and they make me feel like I'm really in shape and looking good. About an hour into my workout, the college kids show up and they are usually rock hard and have all the right clothing and then I begin to feel like a middle age, overweight, out-of-shape mother!

I was so excited to swipe my card and say good morning to the front desk lady. I wondered if she had noticed that I had missed a couple of months. I was hoping that she'd say, "Good Morning Sheryl, welcome back."

The card swiper just swiped my card and buzzed me in and didn't even act like she recognized me from the past.

I walked the long hall to the locker room. As I walked in, I said silently, "Hello locker room, did you miss me? I've missed you." The locker room didn't change, it just sat there as if I had been there yesterday.

I left the locker room and made my way to the fitness area and opened the door and it welcomed me as if I were good friends. I grabbed a fresh warm towel, smelled it and breathed out and said to myself, "Oh you smell good, glad to smell you today." Then I found my elliptycal machine and began my workout. As I pushed 'quickstart' I said to the machine, "Hello my dear machine friend, how have you been? Have you missed me? I've missed you. It's good to be back."

I had already decided I was only going to exercise for thirty-five minutes. I plugged in my headset and began watching the morning news and began mindless moving. About ten minutes later, I decided I could probably continue with the machine for about forty-five minutes.

As I was stepping and moving my arms, I began looking around the room and critiquing the other people also enjoying the machines.

On the stair climber was a man that I have been seeing for a year now and he is about sixty pounds lighter. When I first saw him over a year ago, he would very slowly waddle to the bicycle, fall into the seat and barely pedal for thirty minutes and sweat like he was Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France. "Poor guy." I would say to myself. "Good thing he's here. I wonder if he's recently had a heart attack because he sure looks like he's doing some kind of cardiac rehab."

Then I looked over at the weight machines and there he was, the German Baptist in his gray sweat pants and plain white t-shirt. How did I know he is German Baptist?...his beard. As I watched him lift each dumb bell and breath in and breath out, I wondered to myself if it was against his religion to wear gray sweat pants and a plain white t-shirt and be at the Y. Then I began to wonder about the German Baptist women and if they were allowed to workout and if so, do they have to wear their bonnet the whole time and if it would stink from the sweat.

I heard some breathing...and I looked right and there he was; the Chinese man that walks on the treadmill slow. As he slowly walks he breaths in and breaths out very loudly with his two pound hand weights. His breathing is very methodical as if he's saying, "wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off...."

I looked at my time and I was already twenty-five minutes into the routine. Then a man I'd never seen before came in. He was thin and had on white long underwear, with denim painter shorts over them, red tube socks, black Converse shoes and a gray long sleeved sweat shirt. As I watched him walk across the room to the treadmill I wondered if he was dressed that way because he was cold.

I hadn't really notice until that very moment that the lady to my left was going about a hundred miles an hour on her elliptycal machine. The only reason I noticed she was there and moving fast was because she stopped abruptly. About that time she pulled her shirt off and worked out in her swimming suit! This Asian lady has absolutely no curves and is rock hard! She was dripping wet with sweat. She finished in her swim suit and walked over to the weights and began bench pressing. I watched her lift weights and I thought to myself, "I'd like to look like her."

I looked down and I had already burned up my forty-five minutes that I had committed to and only had seven minutes left and I would have worked out for an hour. It was a nice feeling to know that I had managed to people watch for almost an hour.

Then a curvy, short lady walked into the room and stepped onto the treadmill. I thought to myself, "Wow, what a cute lady, she has a bubble butt and small waist, I'd like to look like her."

Not far behind her came a lady about my age and she was tall, thin and well proportioned and I thought to myself, "She's pretty, I'd like to look like her."

Then a fat lady about fifteen years younger than me came in wearing think gray sweat pants and a big baggy sweatshirt. I recognized that lady, that was me right after I gave birth. I was trying to cover up the fat and be comfortable at the same time. It didn't work, I just looked fatter and sloppy. Maybe by wearing those clothes, she had decided that she was going to not only burn some calories, she was going to sweat some pounds off too. "Good for her." I thought to myself.

My machine stopped and I decided I wasn't finished exercising.

I cleaned my machine and was looking around for another workout option. I chose the bike.

I went over and adjusted the seat and began. As I was pedalling away, a very tall man got on the bike beside me and said, "Hello, it's been awhile since I've been here. First I had a cold and couldn't come. Just when I was better, I got the flu. After I got over the flu, I got it again. I'm all better and now I'm back. It's good to be back. Hello."

I smiled at the man and said, "Hello, it is good to see you and I'm glad you're back."

I said to him, the very words I wanted to be said to me.