New Gym

I broke down and decided to get a new gym membership. I hadn't been to the Y in months and cancelled that membership, but my buddy Daisy has started working downtown and lunch runs with her, Salty, and LP have become more frequent. I don't mind the occasional "sink shower" but 3 or 4 lunch runs a week and it gets old. I added another weekly morning run downtown with one of my TNT peeps so I decided it was time to find a gym and a shower close to the office.

I splurged and went with the more expensive gym. Membership is month to month and there are a lot of great classes as well as nice new treadmills with fancy personal TV screens, nice locker room, and a 25 meter pool to boot. On top of that they have free coffee/tea and fruits in the morning as well as a hot tub and sauna and at least one freebie night a week where you can grab a pasta dinner or beverages etc. If my raise hadn't come at just the right time I probably would have gone the frugal route but hey a girl has to treat herself sometimes.

I went yesterday to try out a hard bodies class with Daisy before committing to a membership. It was a long day for me with an easy 35 minute run in the morning and a medium effort 50 minute run in the evening. I'm getting used to the double runs but was interested to see how I would handle throwing a fitness class into the mix. The class was great working all the muscle groups. My best description is a good rotation of regular free weights but done aerobic style with music with some yoga ball exercises, and stepping stairs to work your quads. I'm a sissy and grabbed the lightest weights I could find ranging from 3-8 lbs. The instructor and Daisy had some much heavier weights but as I am primarily a runner I'm not too worried about building big arm muscles. I'd just like to keep the ones I have lean and try to create some sort of under arm muscle to take away my dreaded under arm flab. I think I'll stick with the low end weights until this becomes a routine thing.

Well I survived the class but today I have deemed the class sore bodies instead of hard bodies. Holy cow am I a wreck! Muscles I didn't even know I had are sore, as a runner you think your legs are hard core, but I guess this girls legs can learn some new tricks. I'll definitely be passing on the class next Thursday as I'd be afraid of being sore still for the marathon. The hardest exercises for me seemed to be the sustained squats and these crunches where your legs scissored the yoga ball (one on top one on bottom ball resting on your shin) and you lifted your legs and torso, Ouch! I am glad they offer a class like this as I should be doing more lunges and squats and core strengthening to avoid injuries. This will be a great way for me to tap into those without it feeling like a chore.

Evening run I got out with Rootsrunner to talk pacing. I'm feeling more confident about the race and have some ideas to make my group fun. I am just so excited about the whole affair. It will be so interesting to be in such a large race consisting primarily of women.

This morning I did a light treadmill run with Daisy and then a brief swim. It was nice to get back in the water even if my upper body was a wreck. This weekend I am hoping for two 10 milers to round out another week at 50 miles even. Still haven't gotten up to 60 like I wanted but I have been above 40 pretty consistently and I am already 200+ miles over last years total so I am sure I will be ready for JFK regardless. Next week I'll do a mini taper to be rested and ready for San Francisco.