For 2010, Valerie and I had memberships to the Plymouth Meeting Community Center, which features a small workout room and a very nice pool. Although I continued to swim once or twice a week, most of our exercise came from using the elliptical machines in the workout room. The PMCC has three of these machines, with a limit of only 30 minutes of use if someone has signed up and is waiting. This became more and more of a problem for us. I was content to use a treadmill (of which there were about a dozen), but Valerie only wanted the elliptical. This frequently meant having to wait for a machine to free up, which potentially played havok with my getting-to-work-on-time schedule.
On the last day of 2010 we visited a nearby YMCA. It’s a brand new facility. It’s freaking huge! And they have about 20 ellipticals. The pool doesn’t have as many lanes, but the jacuzzi and sauna are better. Plus, they have more classes, and Valerie claims she’ll take some of them and get to socialize thereby. We’ll see.
We plonked down a year’s membership (sneaking in at the 2010 rates and having the “joining fee” waved, which made me very happy). And then we worked out, racing away on the ellipticals for the better part of an hour. A good way to end the year.
On Saturday morning, I was reminded of that adage “Begin as you intend to continue” and so while Valerie was at her morning meeting I went off to the gym. Since I had no time limit, I used an elliptical for an hour, doing a bit over four miles. Then I hit the pool for another quarter mile (I normally do half a mile, but that’s instead of walking). I was feeling beat. Later, back at home, I shoveled snow from the driveway to avoid the hazards of an icey drive when the snowmelt refroze. And still later, I took Gej for a walk. Ooof. Too much exertion for this Lawrence in one day.
Sunday I rested.
Today, I hit the gym hard, going a bit over an hour and putting in four miles on the elliptical before heading to work from there. We’ll see how long I can keep this up. As my endurance builds and my weight declines, I’m hoping I can get back to my personal best of a few years ago and manage five miles in an hour.
