7 Hours on a Treadmill...

This weekend, the San Francisco area was treated to a monsoon of sorts.  It rained and rained and rained.  East of us, the Tahoe area reportedly experienced 4-7 FEET of snow in some areas.  It was pretty yucky the whole weekend.

When it rains, I have to make the decision to MT*U (Man the &%* up!!! ) and go out into it, or head on down to the Four Seasons where my gym is located.  As I am more interested in building miles than character at this point in training, this weekend, I selected the gym.

Spending 7 hours in the gym is a study of human nature.  What else do you have to do when slopping out 44 miles on a rubber belt?  

Here are some (snarkfilled) observations of 7 hours of human gym behavior...

I have determined that there are 5 types of people who go to the gym.

First, the pretenders...

They dress up nice, strut around with exaggerated poses, belly's sucked in and arms out (like they have huge apelike guns).   Yet, these poseurs don't do any detectable exercising.  They get on a tread mill for about 5 minutes or lift a few sets, then look around to see who is watching and quickly move on to the next non-exercise routine.  Bonus annoyance if they are wearing headbands.

Total calories burned? 10.  Head inflation?  157 PSI.


Secondly, the "I was able to fit into this 10 years ago" dressers.

Male or female, these types of people wear clothes that were so 40 pounds ago.  Every excruciating detail of their grossly out of shape bodies is exaggerated by clothes that fit them like stretched balloons.  

Dude, I don't really want to see your junk. 
Lady, I have seen women on stripper poles with looser fitting clothing. 
Stop, please...go work out at home. 

Total calories burned?  Not sure for that person, but I lost 400 calories simply tossing my breakfast.


Thirdly, the overachiever....

In San Francisco, the over achiever is usually a pretty, petite Asian girl who can twist her body into a pretzel, while stepping on a platform, with a dumbells in each hand, a stretch band attached to her leg and a kettle ball balanced on her head.   She is simultaneously working out and calculating chemical reaction chains on a slide rule...life is too darn short to single task.  Never breaking a sweat, this type of gym specimen makes everyone envyhate her because we all want to be that strong, fast and flexible.     Total calories burned? 4,000    Envy factor?  10 on a scale of 10.  Men's heads turned?  100%


Fourthly, the loud gym person.

You know the type.  A fifteen pound dumbell lift off the floor makes them scream as if their colons were violently squirting out of their rear ends as they lift.  Heavy, exaggerated breathing and the arrrghhhhhhh as they set the bar down with no weight on it.  "Look at me!  I am a weight lifter...arrgggggggh!"     This is especially annoying if you combine the first type with this one.  

Calories burned?  12 for them.  150 for me...running a mile away from them.


Finally, the close worker outer.  

In my gym there are at least 25 treadmills lined up in a row.  Most of the time this weekend, there were just 3 or 4 in use.  Sometimes, it was just sweaty old me slapping out some miles.   However....TWICE people(once a guy, once an old lady)  looked up and down the row and picked the treadmill right fricking next to me.  Really?  In my opinion, the male urinal rule should apply.  Pick the urinal/treadmill mathematically furthest from the closest inhabitant.  Otherwise, there is going to be trouble.  Why in a row of 25 pick one right next to me? Quit looking at my dashboard.  I am just sayin.   Irriation level?  100 on a scale 100!

Anyways, I did 44 miles this weekend on the mill...next time, I think I will run out in the wild...it is much less annoying!