Tales from the Treadmill, Part 3

My trial membership to the gym is coming to a close, and I have to admit, I’m starting to like the place. I also have to admit when I first found out about the exorbitant monthly fee, I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea. But now that I’ve been there three times, … well … I’m still not too thrilled with the cost. I simply can’t get over the fact that I’d be paying for something that my own two legs can do just about anywhere for free.

But I also can’t ignore the fact that I’ve walked over four miles this week and that’s at least three and a half miles more than usual. So just because I can walk for free, doesn’t mean I will. And I really can’t explain it either. It’s easy to think it’s the cost of the membership itself. That is to say, if you know you’re paying through the nose for the place, you’ll definitely use it. However, there are two small problems with this theory:

1. It’s a free seven-day trial. I’m not paying for anything.
2. I have in the past spent hundreds on gym memberships and never set foot in the place again

So maybe it’s just a “right place at the right time” thing.

Or maybe it’s just that this place is big and shiny and there are so many things to do. Not only do they have hundreds of machines to work my heretofore undiscovered muscles, but they also offer many classes. There’s Pilates, Rock Climbing, and (based on the group of people I saw gathered near the towels) Advanced Sitting Around and Laughing.

And they have pools! Three of them. I really like swimming and this is something I definitely can’t do just anywhere. So tonight, after the 35-minute, 1-donut-burned treadmill session, I headed to the locker room to change into my swimsuit. This was my first visit to the club’s showers and let me tell you, boy were they nice. This was nothing like the way I remember group showers. (That would be high school.) I guess I just assumed ugly, open, and moldy was the norm. But believe it or not there is a difference between public high school locker rooms and a $3.8 billion health club facility. This place has individual stalls for Pete’s sake … with marble tile and Kohler shower heads. I wouldn’t have been a damn bit surprised if they provided the Swedish Bikini Team to wash and dry my hair for me at no additional cost.

So after the luxurious bathing and changing into my fashionable swimwear, I headed off to the lap pool. The water was the perfect temperature (cold) and I was ready for this (meaning, I wasn’t ready for this). Now on at least two occasions in my past, I have swum (swum?) a mile. It may have taken me forty-five to sixty minutes, but at least I did it. Today I spent forty-five to sixty minutes swimming to one end of the pool in back. To say I was a bit off-form would be an understatement. But it’s a start.

The reward, however, was a dip in one of the two ginormous, twenty-person hot tubs. A guy could really get used to this, even without the club-provided Swedish Bikini Team. Hmmm… Maybe this place is worth the hefty price tag after all.