To the Gym we go!

Remember back in NOVEMBER 2013 when I decided to purchase a gym membership instead of a treadmill? Good. Well, it is costing me a little more than I had hoped but for a good reason. The whole family now has a membership. So the cost is about twice what I was paying before but they do have a nice pool, gym, rock climbing wall.... so if the boys come with me on a Saturday or Sunday it should be worth it.... at least in the winter time. I am not sure anyone wants to "go to the gym" in the summer.

Anyhow, we did make one trip the the gym last year, only because Kenneth decided to bring a few friends home from school and go there for his birthday party, but it all worked out well. On the other hand, I have had the membership for like what, 6 weeks now? And I finally really started using it.

So what keeps someone from going to the gym right away? Well, it has to due with being ready to go. I had never really "taken" notice of what I would need in the gym. So while you are there signing up, take a tour but pretend it is your first visit. First, where is the locker room, showers, etc. Do they have towel service or do you need to bring your own. You just never know so it is important to ask a bunch of questions.

One of my largest concerns is that I wanted to be able to "lock" my locker. Sure they have little cubby hole lockers with keys that you can "rent" for 50 cents but who wants to deal with trying to stuff everything in there. Plus if I am going to go before or during work hours I will need someplace that will allow me to not wad up and wrinkle my clothes even worse.

I ended up buying two locks, and I'll tell you why. When I first was looking for a lock, I started looking for something that was a "combination" lock. There are a lot of new stupid locks out there. You can spell words, you can even do it on 4 directional motion sequences. Crazy stuff. The Master lock by far is superior and about twice the money. However, the first time I went to use it I wasn't sure if I would be able to even get the thing on. It went on the locker but it would not hang up and down, only kind of at a slant. It was difficult to get on and off. So today I went to 4 different stores looking for the "perfect" lock. Lets just say I didn't find it. It would have been like the Master lock above only with a smaller shaft size on the lock. The shaft size on the Brinks lock that I ended up finding at Walmart (last resort for me) was the perfect size. Amazingly, I can not find a photo of this lock anywhere online. While the Brinks lock will work, you can just tell it is not made nearly as well as the Master lock. The combination wheels spin easily on the Master lock whether the lock is open or closed. The Brinks lock has to have the unlock combination showing the whole time it is unlocked. So I find myself unlocking the locker, closing the lock so I can  spin the combination dials (wheels) and then reversing the process to lock the locker again. However, I was able to get four of the same lock for the whole family so all our lockers will be easy for me to find and unlock.

You might be thinking, what on earth is such a bid deal about the lock. Well, most places I could find the Master lock. Beyond that the next smallest in a combination lock was a luggage lock. Which all have the TSA key override. The one person who is going to have one is the person who shouldn't. Plus, luggage locks are just like the TSA. They are only there to give you a false sense of security. So I wanted something that could be cut with a $1 pair of pliers or pried open with a $1 screwdriver. The Brink lock fits the bill, but I really wish it was better made like the Master lock.

Another thing to consider at the Gym is the equipment you'll be using. I use MapMyRun to log all my "running" workouts and I would just hate to have to switch programs on my iPhone when I am at the gym to record my workout. This week I have been recorded both of them manually. However, the treadmills have much more data than what I enter that would be nice to keep track of. I can save the data to a flash drive and the treadmill also has a Nike+ link. I just need to figure out how to connect or import the full data into MapMyRun.

The treadmills I am running on at the gym are the Life Fitness 95T's with the optional TV attachment. The first time I did not think I would be all that interested in the TV because I was there to workout, not to watch TV. Today I finally put down my iPhone and plugged in my ear-buds and turned to PBS on the channel selector. "This Old House" was on. It was distracting enough for about 10 minutes when I was running at 5 MPH on the treadmill. However, at faster paces I couldn't concentrate hard enough on my breathing and running and makes sense of the TV.

So how did my runs go? The first day was the pits. I hopped on, set the difficulty to medium and set the speed to 5.5 MPH (11 min mile). It about killed me. The incline on the treadmill pointed to the moon and I was still trying to run 5.5 MPH... no slowing down on a treadmill. My heart raced to 185 bpm. That is a little high for my comfort zone. There is something way more difficult about keeping a steady speed. But what a treadmill will help me with is finding the stride that is easier for me to run at that pace. Today was way more successful even though my overall speed looks slower. I started out walking for a quarter mile (3.8 MPH) then moved to 4.5 MPH for a slow jog for another quarter mile... then on to 5 MPH, 5.5 MPH, 6 MPH, and top speed of 6.5 MPH then I reversed it back all the way down. It made what should have been a 30 minute-ish run a 40 minute-ish run. However, I was able to watch my heart rate all the way up and I never topped 176 bpm. According to their chart on the treadmill for my age I was in my sweet spot when I was running 5 MPH. So, I may train for the 15K at that pace and only increase speed as my heart rate comes down... Ofcourse, I still want to occasionally do a short fast run, so we wills see how it goes. Maybe that will still be my Monday run.


Running is definitely being in tune with you body physically and mentally. Running on a treadmill though is a whole new mental trial to overcome. It is even worse than running laps at the park or track. When you run outside you get to know the terrain, you get to watch life go by. In the gym it is the same view all the time, only the people and the cars driving down the road change. Ugh. I am so glad that I should be able to get back outside in 3-4 months. 

Oh, and if I seemed overly "proud full" on my last post I am sorry. I am just fired up and have a passion on that particular subject. Sometime that passion sneaks out at times.

Till next week - keep warm and keep on running, 
           Otto