Cold December

It’s December, and I surrender.

Early this morning was the first time I walked into the fitness center wearing anything more than a T-shirt and shorts.  From June until now, I was able to get away with wearing only that getup during each of my visits - two, three, or four times a week – even during these past couple of sometimes-chilly months.  Because why deal with locker room hassles if you can just walk right in, walk right out and avoid it?

I knew it wouldn’t last forever, though, as the 40-degree weather was becoming more common, especially in the mornings.  About a month ago I bought myself some long stretchy exercise pants, and looked at special fitness jackets too though in the end I decided just to stick with my normal coat.  I figured I’d wear those pants during strength training days, but on spinning class days I would change into my shorts once I got there.  So either I’d be stashing pants and a coat in the locker, or my just my coat, on these increasingly close days.

But before I was going to do that, I had to make sure I remembered how to operate the locker locks.  Louise, the fitness center concierge who showed me the ropes back in May before I became a member, explained it to me once and had me try it, but several months had passed and I forgot.  Hit the key key, then C, then a code, then the key key?  Or C first, then the number, then the key key?  I tried various sequences on various locks, but was unable to figure it out.  I even looked on the internet and found Digilock instructions, but that didn’t work.  I’m still missing a step somewhere.  Despite my frustration, though, this was not important enough for me to bother anybody to ask for a reminder on how to work the locker room locks.  So I will continue without use of the lockers.

What makes me leery of locker rooms in the first place, besides the eternal reminder of what awful times I had in P.E. back in middle school and high school because of my inadequacies?  It’s the pervert thing.  Real or imagined, it seems like old guys stare at younger guys.  Yes, I’m 46, but at this place, I’m telling you, I’m still a spring chicken, relatively speaking.  There are lots and lots of old guys there.  It’s an expensive, fancy-pants “wellness center”, which I can only attend because of my workplace discount.  There aren’t many young guys there.  Which I kind of like because it’s less intimidating.  Yet there are some, so I’m in a weird position of having old guys perhaps staring at me, yet young guys avoiding being stared at by guys my age.  Most likely, it’s all just in my head though, right?

Anyway -- on my way out from a recent attempt, I noticed there was a plain old fashioned lonely, empty, barren coat rack right by the entrance to the locker room.  Of course!  Forget the lockers, I can just use that!  I’ll just throw on my coat on top of my normal T-shirt and shorts, no changing.  Once in a while you see guys with a coat on but wearing shorts.  That’s perfect (as long as nobody decides to steal it).

So that’s what I did this morning.  At 6:30 a.m. on this first day of December, there was ice on my windshields and no way I could just wear the T—shirt and shorts.  I threw my coat on, put it on the rack when I got there, almost forgot it when I left (so I had to go back in to get it), and all was good.  So that’s what I’ll do for the next few months.  No big deal!

By the way – though I’ve been working out for a solid six months now, I don’t look much different yet.  I’ve lost weight, but very slowly, with a really long way to go.  Mostly because I haven’t changed my diet much, and my spinning class/cardio activity has tapered off quite a bit.  However, a slower loss of weight means it is more likely to stay off, right?  That’s what I keep telling myself.  And at least I’m getting stronger and feel better, so it has definitely been worth it.  Hooray for me!