Having No Idea IS the New "Cool".

“Please keep your arms and hands inside this contraption at all times!”

That’s what the treadmill machines at my gym should put as a disclaimer – right across the front so you can’t miss it. 

You know that I’m good at performing “hard to look cool” stunts, on a daily basis.  I don’t know why I do these things.  It must be hard-wired in me somewhere because as hard as I try to be careful and not fart around too much, I inevitably either end up getting hurt – physically, or I succumb to total embarrassment. 

I vowed to myself yesterday that I was going to cardio it up at my gym.  No more ‘Lazy Lucy’ activity.  I was going to hit it and hit it hard.  There was a group of ‘gym pros’ standing at the front counter when I walked in, I acknowledge them and smiled as I swiped my membership card and tossed my keys into the key bucket. 

“Hi there!” says Mr. Brick Shithouse.

“Hi.” I said back, thinking please don’t look at me.

“Have a good workout.” He says back to me.

“Thanks, I think these stairs are going to be my first challenge.” I said back half-jokingly.

I tripped on them half way up.

After I recovered from the “Oh god I hope he didn’t see that” moment I scoped out the upper level to make sure no other witnesses saw my flub. 

I jumped on the elliptical machine and decided that my tooshy needed some serious one on one time with this bad boy.  I selected my weight, duration of time I wanted to interact with the elliptical, and the desired program – which was the “Glute Blaster” workout.  Yay! I am going to have one fine ass once this all said and done.

Level 1.  That’s a good start.  Set my iPod on shuffle and started grooving to my music.  All of sudden my screen starts doing this blinking thing and this little light is going in a clockwise pattern.  I’m looking at this and thinking “Oh this is fun, a light show while I workout”.   It stopped at ‘REVERSE’.  Shit. Already?  I just barely was starting to go forward.  I stopped going forward and shifted my legs to start carrying me backwards.  Again, getting into the backwards groove and my timer says “10,9,8, … 1” and the light show began again.  “Round and round and round we go, where we stop, no one kno-“ Shit. Forward.  Are you kidding me?  I did this for about 5 minutes and de-selected the “Glute Blaster” button.  Stupid machine. 

I completed 30 minutes on the elliptical and jumped off to head to the bicycles.  I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure if your legs are numb, that’s not a good thing. 

I sat down on the machine and, again, having no clue what I’m supposed to be doing, I selected the “Fat Burn” button.  I like buttons.

I de-selected the “Fat Burn” button about 10 minutes in. 

I can’t be climbing hills.  I just wanted a leisurely ride. 

I finished my bike ride (5 miles) and headed towards the treadmills.  I selected the last treadmill up against the window – away from all the other gym-goers.  Again, not knowing what these buttons do I selected “Quick start” this time.  I’ll manually select my speed and incline as the last 2 machines did me no favors.   I set my Nike® Coach on my iPod up and decided a 3-mile walk/run was going to be all that my pillars for legs could take.

I struggled, immensely with trying to walk a straight line.  My legs were still numb from the elliptical and without even trying I kept walking into the handlebars (that were obviously designed for morons like me). 

I held on the remaining time.

In addition to handlebars, the treadmills also had a T.V. attached to them so that you could watch your favorite show while walking.  I say that because apparently my favorite show is Dharma & Greg since I couldn’t figure out how to work the damn thing nor could I figure out how to change the channel.  I left the T.V. alone and opted for my iPod music instead. 

I would randomly select the “+” button to increase my incline throughout my work out, feeling a bit egotistic because every time I adjusted it, it didn’t seem to get any harder.  I chalked that up to my superb walking skills. 

My 3 miles ended and I felt great!  2 miles on the elliptical, 5 on the bike and 3 on the treadmill.  So proud! 

I stopped the machine and took my earplugs out and this insanely loud obnoxious noise was coming from my machine.  I looked around the gym to see if anyone else was noticing this and took note of the glances I was getting.  OH MY GOD!  The volume was insanely loud!  I gave the machine the once-over and figured out how to turn the volume down.  How in the hell did that happen?  I wasn’t even watching T.V.

Never mind. 

It’s no wander I did so great on my damn workout.  This whole time I was selecting the volume button in the attempt to up my incline.  Are you serious?

It’s one of the moments that you WISH you could take back.  I could just hear people now “Hey lady, you mind turning that shit down?” 

I did an about-face and forced my jello-y legs to carry me down the stairs.  Grabbed my keys out of the key bucket and bailed out of there.  Once I was in my safe zone (my car, with the doors locked) I started giggling.  I cannot go anywhere or do anything without making an ass out of myself.  It’s this large black cloud that looms over me. 

So that’s it in a nutshell.  I cardio blasted my thighs yesterday and I now have to hold onto my towel bar when sitting down in my bathroom. 

Today’s word of the day is: Moderation.