The Workout Update

Wow. I tried LA Fitness yesterday, and I was way overwhelemed and not at all impressed with their sales staff. I don't react well to strong sales pushing... if you want to sell me something, present me with a good product at a reasonable price, and I'm sold! But if for any reason you need to spend 45 minutes trying to sell me your gym when I've explained I'm trying several different gyms before I make any decisions -- I most likely am not going to choose your product. I was soooo incredibly frustrated, but I am not going to go into all of that now. The gym was VERY nice, new equipment, etc. But I had a very negative impression because of the sales staff. I had to get to a dinner so I didn't have MORE time to argue, otherwise I would have explained that they were a big part of the reason I wasn't interested. Today I'm going to go give their pool a try (granted, an advantage they have over Bally's) and tomorrow I'm going to try out one of their classes. Then my 3 day trial pass is over (as a side note, I had an 8 week trial pass at Bally's, and they presented me their specials the first day and then called again when my pass was over to give me their specials once more... that was PERFECT).

One interesting thing that happened at LA -- I was on the treadmill, running upstairs on this sort of overlook thing. Then I see my instructor from a class at BALLY'S walk in! Too funny. So she and I are yelling to each other - her downstairs, me on this treadmill. Ridiculous! We can barely understand each other, too. So about 5 minutes later my run and cool down were over, so I went to go try to find her. I did, and she was about to start teaching a class at LA, only her 2nd one but she was going to be doing that one and picking up another class at LA in June as well. I told her how I was shopping around, trying LA and then 24 Hour. She said good for me. THEN she said that she was just talking about me in class Monday and said "anyone seen the girl that always stands right here, had totally transformed her body since she started taking the class?" (WOW I can't believe she said that!!) I told her I felt like I got all squishy on vacation and she said I still looked great... for some reason her opinion really matters to me so that was exciting. So then I told her I hoped I'd see her at Bally's or LA... it will be sad if I choose 24 and don't get to see her again. But anyway, that was a highlight.

Later Wednesday
Just got back from the pool at LA... WOW!!! I was on a swim team when I was little, was a lifeguard in high school, and then swam almost every day my junior year of college, but haven't swam since then. When I started again my junior year, I was barely able to finish 500 yards, so I wasn't expecting much from today. So I got in and swam 10 laps easily... then another 10. Then I did 10 of backstroke, then 10 of breaststroke... then 30 more of freestyle. I figured the pool was just 15 yards, since it was going pretty well. So I stopped and asked someone, and he said 25... I was like "no way, I haven't swam in years, and it's so easy, so I figured it had to be 15"... he said "yeah, it's 25, and you look like you swim every day... especially your breaststroke, it is beautiful... you're a breaststroker, huh?" "yup!!!" So then I swam another 10 laps of breaststroke (what can I say, he inspired me!), then 20 of freestyle and then I was done. Add it up -- that's 100 laps, or 2500 yards, in about 55 minutes. Very decent time and DEFINITELY decent distance. I'm not easily impressed with myself, I have high standards for myself, but even I thought "wow... I really AM in great shape". So yeah. That moved LA Fitness up in my head, since Bally's doesn't have a pool and I just looooove swimming. Yay yay yay!!

OH and I found a half marathon training schedule today that is 12 weeks long and there's a half marathon in Portland in... 12 weeks! So, um... yeah. I'm gonna start training! I need 12 miles this week and I've already done 5, so should be easy to get 7 more in 3 more days. If it's all going well in the next month or so, I'm signing up for the halfer.

I've become one of those crazy exercise people I used to hate hate hate...