wibbly!

I gymmed! Yay me!

did: a dance warmup

biked: 7 miles

lifted: free weights

walked: 3 laps around the ice rink

My arms are very wibbly. And I must say, I think little of UAA’s weight room. They have 3 small rooms, one of machines which are virtually all leg stuff and sized for men anyway, one cardio with bikes, cross-country ski machines, and treadmills, and one free weight room. I think they used to be raquetball courts. They’re about that size, and they can be looked in upon from the watching level of the gym, like raquetball courts. There are enough free weights, but not enough benches or free-weight machines: no leg press, for example.

It took quite a while for me to get up the nerve to go in to the free weight room — actually, it took a while for me to get up the nerve to go into the weight room at all, because from the one door into the place, you can see the poorly-equipped machine room, and the handful of guys who are using it. This inspires better people than me to edge away nervously. However, in finding the dance studio, I also found the overlook into the other gym rooms, so I learned there was more than one room, and there were girls in the middle room (the cardio room) so I took heart and after I did a dance warmup, I bravely went into the weight room and did seven miles on one of the stationary bikes.

And I *sweated*, and it was *great*. The thing that kind of sucks about swimming is that you don’t notice you’re sweating. You get hot and red-faced (if you’re me, anyway) but you can’t actually tell you’r *sweating*, so there’s that part missing from the workout. The part where sweat is pouring off your bright red face in an utterly unattractive manner. (Hey, it’s important to me. Go get your own kinks.) So biking and sweating like a little piggy-wig was great.

But during the entire twenty minutes or so that I biked, not a single female went into the free weights room.

I *hate* that. I mean, it’s *nerve-wracking*, you know? And because my nerves were wracked, I went back into the machine weight room and looked around and determined that yep, those machines sucked a lot, and if I wanted to do an upper body workout, I was going to *have* to go into the free weight room. With all those BOYS.

It’s not that I don’t like boys. It’s that they’re a lot stronger than me, especially when I’m as pudgy and unmuscular as I am right now, and I feel INCREDIBLY LAME doing bench press with just the bar (which weighs like 40 pounds or something by itself; it’s not like it’s actually an insignificant weight, but still) or doing bicep curls/tricep extensions with 10 pound weights, when all these guys around me are using 75 pound dumbbells and benching — okay, I didn’t actually notice what anybody was benching. But you get the point. I get all competitive and that’s SO dumb. Also, men will not make eye contact with me in the free weight room. This really compounds the feeling of being an alien creature who Does Not Belong. I really don’t like it. Mutter.

Although there was one guy, as I was just telling Sarah, a black guy with pale blue eyes, in his forties, who smiled and made eye contact with me, so kudos for him.

Anyway, I didn’t permit my overabundance of testosterone to run amok and injure me, so I did pretty good today. I did bench press and bicep curls and tricep extensions and shoulder press and … a couple other things which have already escaped my little tiny memory. A butterfly press.

So yah. Pretty good workout. Plenty of sweating involved. I think I may swim on Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday, weight lift on MF, go to yoga on Wednesday and dance class on Saturday. And then I will fall right over dead, probably. :)

Now I suspect all them fucking little endorphins are going to keep me up til one in the morning. Fucking little endorphins. :)

8 thoughts on “wibbly!

  1. Y’know, that whole overcompetitive/You Don’t Belong Here feeling is exactly why I always fail to go to the gym, or at least to do anything other than stairmaster or other cardio stuff. I _want_ the weights, damnit, and I’m not scared of anything, but I get all intimidated and I hate it. Clearly, I should move to Alaska, where we can work out and drive each other insane being competitive. But hey, I bet it’d drive us to get in damned good shape!

  2. I loved the Sun gym; it was small but it had machines for legs, too, and really nice rowing machines (my machine of choice for aerobic workout, along with the stationary bike and treadmill). I was often working out with my cow orkers who would talk to me and stuff, and I tried not to notice when they were clunking on more than my body weight.

    I miss weight training, even if I never benched more than, uh…. 20 lbs or so. Okay, so I am feeble.

  3. I know the comments thing does funky things to second paragraphs. I haven’t figured out why — ok, I haven’t really tried. :)

    Bench pressing is hard. And women don’t typically have lots of upper body strength. And Flits are not big people. I’m not sure only benching 20 pounds is exactly a sign of feebleness. :)

    Clearly, Angie AND Susannah AND Sarah AND Flit should ALL move to Alaska so we can be competitive and in killer shape! :)

  4. Yeah, but just think, Ted will be surrounded by girls in killer shape! Cool girls in killer shape! Biker chicks from Mars! Or, er, something.

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