Last night after flute choir (which was fun! We played some great music. Also, I am formulating, in the Grand Tradition of Bean's "Strongly Worded Letters," a note to the people over at the ALRY Publishing House [we play a lot of music from them in flute choir] about their terrible copying or editing or whatever it is that makes for typos, mistakes, and misprints in almost everything we play from them. Some of the music is awesome, but it's so aggravating when practically every part has an error) I came home, pretty tired, but determined to go to the gym.
I've been talking about the gym with my flute teacher and a couple of the ladies in the group, and also some girls from work, and my massage therapist (more on this in a minute) - basically, I've been talking to everybody about it - and Judy from flute choir was telling me how she did a whole session on the treadmill with the incline set pretty steep. My co-worker, Hung, does the same thing. I've been doing the "Cross Country" program, which is fine, but I'm starting to get a little bored, so I've been wanting to try the incline for the whole time. I like how you can burn more calories that way. Not that I'm overly concerned with burning calories: my goal is smaller, less fatty legs and belly, but still. Also, Bruce, my massage therapist recommended trying the incline, and he was really encouraging and complimentary about my chances of seeing good results from going to the gym at all when I was getting a little discouraged and impatient (and he made me feel really good on the massage table). I'll pretty much do anything Bruce recommends, and that includes listening to Taj Mahal and Pete Seeger (but not Bruce Springsteen; gotta draw the line somewhere).
When I got home, Patrick had just finished working on his truck (changing the brakes), and he's had a pretty physical week of cleaning up his work area (they're remodeling soon and his group had to pack up a bunch of dead computer equipment for salvage), so he was too tired to go with me, which was understandable. We have our pick from about 4 gyms within a 10 minute distance from our house, and when we go together, we've been going to one over in Los Alamitos (it's newer, with nice treadmills and windows, which are important to me for some reason, even at night), but since it was late and it was just me, I decided to go to the one closest to our house.
Unfortunately this particular gym is older and small, and needs a serious remodel, but the treadmills were fine, and there were empty ones, so I strapped on my iPod, fired up the Radiohead and got to work.
They have the treadmills in this long hall-like area, with walkways in front for people going to other parts of the gym, and in back for people looking for a treadmill, and on each wall, in front and behind the treadmills, are mirrors (also, TVs, but I wasn't positioned in a good place to see them, which was fine with me). This is the first time I've been face to face with myself in the gym, and it was a little weird. For one thing, I wore my Gap workout pants, which are capris, and I could see what Stacy London and Clinton Kelly are always going on about when they diss capri pants. I mean, with flip flops maybe they're okay; I've got other cropped pants and I'm going to keep wearing them. These pants, which are a little more form-fitting than I thought, with my sneakers and Police t-shirt, emphasized my, um, shape, perhaps more than I would've liked. It didn't stop me, seeing my fat ass in the mirror. It didn't fire me up, exactly, though. I was just thankful that I wasn't able to crane my head around and get a look at myself from behind. Instead, I mostly looked at my feet, and the way I place them on the belt of the treadmill when I walk, and I tried to remember the old "glide walk" we did in marching band, and I wondered if it was better to walk more smoothly or okay to bounce a little, and then I thought, damn, I need a better bra. And then I watched the tiny, older lady next to me finish her 60 minutes and move to another machine and start all over again.
I ended up increasing my time to 45 minutes and increasing the incline level. I tried to walk without holding on to the rails for a few minutes every once in awhile. I didn't sweat as much as I normally do, but I burned more calories and traveled further (hypothetically). I'm not sure why that is. I drank a lot of water when I was finished and a little during my walk. When I got off I was significantly wobbly. I headed home, played a move or two in Scrabble on Facebook, went to bed, and dreamed about... whatever it is I dreamed about. Right now I'm listening to Radiohead, it's raining, and I have no proper ending for this post.
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