Stupid lightning forced me into the craptastic gym

I'm really, really, really scared of lightning. As in, sprint and scream like a little girl scared. It's fabulous that I live in the Lightning Capital of the United States.

Since it was lightning last night (and I was screaming like a little girl), I was forced into the craptastic gym (which I'm really scared of, too).

When I walked into the gym, I noticed something I’ve never seen in there before: another person. We stared at each for an awkward number of seconds (probably due to shock of someone else using such a crappy gym). Then, she quickly jumped on a treadmill and hogged the fan. All of the fan. It wasn’t even on rotate. It was just aimed at her. Rude.

The fan was a huge loss, but there are two treadmills, so I wasn’t deterred.

I hopped on and began my planned 45-minute speed workout. I figured I could drip sweat on the other lady or pass out due to heat stroke and maybe she’d feel bad about being a fan jerk.

Things were going well (albeit sweaty) until the 1.6-mile mark. That’s when my treadmill came to a dead stop. I thought I must have pulled emergency stop cord. Nope. I tried starting it again to no avail. I tried pulling the emergency stop cord and restarting. No luck. So, not even halfway through my sweaty, fan-less workout, my treadmill is kaput.

Yet another reason to call this gym craptastic.

It was at this time that I considered joining a real gym. A real gym with a temperature below the surface of the sun. A real gym with an adequate number of fans. A real gym with working equipment.   

But since I was already at the craptastic gym and since I planned on a 45-minute workout and didn’t even get in 20 minutes, I headed over to the weight room. I’m not a fan of weight machines, but I found a stability ball, a medicine ball and some empty floor space to do some squats, lunges, planks, crunches and push-ups. Not the same as what I had planned, but it was something. And less hot since there was a fan with no rude fan hog in site. 

But, I was still sweaty and somewhat ticked.

Forcing a smile

I’ll give running another go tonight. I’m really hoping for no scary lightning because dealing with the craptastic gym two nights in a row is probably more than I can handle (and possibly more frightening than lightning).

In the meantime, I’m going to look at gyms. Real gyms.