Damn Gym

I like to go the gym in the apartment complex that I call home. It is reasonably well equipped, having 2 treadmills, 2 ellipticals, a stairmaster, a couple of stationary bikes, and a large multi-tstation nautilus machine. I typically visit the gym in the evenings, after 8 PM. The gym is usually deserted at this time.

I like a quite gym, devoid of other people. I can work out, read on the bike and sweat in peace. And not push myself too hard. Yes, I sometimes slack when it is just me.

Last night, it was different. I just settled onto the bike and had been riding for about 14 minutes, and was getting into my biography of Horatio Nelson. And then it happened. A young lady comes into the gym. By young, I mean younger than me, but not so young that she could be un-dateable. I am guessing she was in her mid-thirties. Not that I was staring, because I wasn't.

The problem is that when there are other people in the gym I feel the need to push myself harder. To get after it. Now, in all fairness to the lady at the gym, she wasn't paying any attention to me. She was on a treadmill facing a wall, so I was out of her field of vision, even her peripheral, for most of the hour that I was there. And yet I kicked it up to "11".

And I am paying the price today. My shoulders are sore. My thighs scream in agony each time I take to the stairs.

Maybe tonight the gym will be empty again so I don't have to work so hard.