My First Day at the Gym

 I did it. I worked out. I put on my little workout outfit, filled up my pink Klean Kanteen with ice water, found an ipod arm band holder that fits an ipod version much older than the one I currently have, and got in my car. Did I know where I was going? Well, no, but I knew I was going to “the gym”, and I was going to workout and join. All in one. I don’t mess around.

I knew the gym was about two miles from my house, but I realized as I approached said intersection, I had no idea where it was. Great. So I started looking and realized there was a good chance I was going to have to turn around… and then I saw the little gym sign. Bingo. So I pulled in and found a parking spot, and looked for the entrance.

Might I add, this whole experience happened while I’m trying to maintain “image”. You know, I don’t want to be the obvious “New Year’s Resolution Gym Girl" who clearly hasn’t worked out in over a year (do NOT judge me) and just stumbled into the gym to occupy a few machines for a couple weeks so the regulars can get frustrated. So I go in, all confident, and I tell the girl I want to join. So another girl takes me to a computer and gets me all set up and she’s like, “have you ever been here before?” and I’m like “no”, and she’s like “do you want to look around?” and I’m like “no”. Ha. I had done my research and I knew I wanted to join there, and if I didn’t like it, I wasn’t signing a contract so I could quit at any time. Brilliant.

So I signed my name on the dotted line and she proceeded to give me the tour, including the locker room where I can use my gym card as a key to get a free locker while I work out. Pure gold. So I put my stuff in a locker and continued to follow her around.

Then she left me. Just like that. Gone.

I was alone, trying to look cool, in a massive gym and I had no idea what I was doing. I wasn’t even really sure what I was going to do for my work out, but I knew I needed to do something. Good thing I had such a specific game plan. Ha.

So I reverted back to my training sessions at my old gym and I thought, “well, I’ll get on the elliptical and warm up for a few minutes, you know, get the blood flowing.” So I scope out the ellipticals and I hopped on. This is where it gets tricky. I have been on similar machines before, but not all machines are created equal, and with each passing year, it seems that about ten buttons are added to workout machines, making it increasingly difficult to hide my New Year’s Resolution Gym Girl status.

Awesome. So, I’m all about the “quick start” button on those machines, so I hop on and start going. Then it starts asking me all these questions and I’m totally confused about how to answer them. I have my earphones on (listening to Tal and Acacia), but I can hear the machine beeping. Pretty obnoxiously. Then I realize I definitely need to put on some resistance to make it a workout. The resistance is on a scale of 1 to 100, with intervals of ONE. What?! So here I am…. Beep…beep…beep…beep…. I figure if I hold down the button it will start doing intervals of ten. Nope. It just beeped faster. At this point I realize I have been on my machine for approximately 30 seconds and it has probably beeped a thousand times. Surely, I think, other people have on headphones, too, and they aren’t hearing this. So, I very non-chalantly look around and see that coincidentally, the people around me are, in fact, NOT wearing headphones.

Image crusher number one. Dang.

So I warmed up for about twelve minutes, and then, I’m sure to the pleasure of everyone around me, I got off the machine and moved on.

I did some pretty legit stretches and a super legit ab workout before moving to do some free weights. My gym has “complimentary towel service”, which I was pretty stoked about, even though I’ve been informed that’s pretty common. I don’t care. I like it. And I will brag about it. So, I had grabbed a complimentary towel during my stretches to put on the mat, and then I took it with me to do some arm weights. You know, because my arm workouts were going to be pretty intense with my ten pound dumbbells, I figured I would need a sweat rag. (sarcasm.)

So I did my arm work-out. By the way, there was some other chick there, all tan and in her workout clothes, who didn’t understand that when someone smiles at you, it’s generally polite to smile back. She was probably just jealous of my complimentary towel.

Anyway, so I did some arm stuff. I’m not going to try to put names on it. Let’s just say I just asked Mark, “is it called dumbbells if it’s two separate ones?”. I’m not going to pretend I know the lingo. I just want to pretend that I look like I know what I’m doing in the gym. (-:

So after the legit arm workout, I decided I would finish up with some pretty intense squats and lunges. I walked away from the arm workout area and about halfway to my destination I realized I had left my complimentary towel. This was quite a dilemma. I mean, there are LOTS of complimentary towels, so I could get another one, yet I’m not one of those people that leaves stuff everyone – I throw things away, I generally try to not make a mess places. But then I realized if I went back there, everyone would know I forgot my complimentary towel and they would think, “Stupid New Year’s Resolution Gym Girl – using all the complimentary towels and just throwing them around.” So I left the towel and pretended like I meant to.

I did my hardcore leg workout, finished with some stretches, drank almost all of my Klean Kanteen, and even worked up a small sweat and got up the ole heart rate. Definitely what I would call a good workout.

So, like a pro, I went to the locker room, gathered my things, walked out the door and hopped in my car and drove back home. 

And that folks, was my first workout at my new gym.