It's easy to get bogged down in the goal-setting, poundages and blood, sweat and tears on a blog about working out but funny things happen too. Maybe some of us old school blood and guts trainers don't always want to admit it but there is a lot of nonsense that goes on in the gym, and this is one such tale.
For those that don't know me well, you will come to learn that I find myself in weird situations-often of my own doing!
When I worked night shift I came to fall in love with overnight workouts. For about 4 solid years I was working a shift of something like 5pm-5am and on those rare nights off, I spent a few hours training. I am not a before-work trainer and sometimes after work on night shift was just too much for my brain to handle, so I always took advantage of my nights off to get a good long one in.
My old gym, East Shore Athletic Club in Charleston, SC, had a 24 hour facility and it became my second home. I'd mop and take the trash out and clean up some nights because they didn't have an overnight staff but that's for another post. This post is about one night in particular when I found myself outwitted by the TV and shamed into submission!
Id brought my iPad with me to watch some videos and get in my hour or so of cardio. Sadly, the wifi was down and I was relegated to one treadmill that had a working TV. It was on HBO and something funny was on so I was okay with that, even thought I learned it was broken and neither the channel nor the volume could change. This night I was laser-focused! I was burning calories like a food test lab! I had my Kai Greene-esque red hoodie on, shoes to match and was pouring sweat like a crackhead going through detox!
I was pounding that poor treadmill for all it was worth and as Ric Flair said famously, "I'm a sixty minute man!" So I finish my hour plod on the treadmill and head to the locker room to cool off a minute and recharge. I was alone in the gym and like I said, this was my second home so I'm fine with taking my shirt off and lounging a bit. Taking a few selfies, hitting up some friends on Twitter-just killing time until I cool down a bit and let my protein shake digest.
Every night I go in that late (about 2am) I was alone. Always. Without fail. There would be the occasional rando, and the homeless man who moved in (more on him later) but never anything more than that. So there I am, shirtless and glistening with sweat....no, more like covered in matted chest hair, emerging from the locker room about to don my hoodie again when lo and behold 3 ladies walk in. And not just anyone, I mean super hot, Maxim cover model, Instagram-star hot women wearing next to nothing and hyped as all get out. Instantly they b-line to the treadmills and what do they find?
Real Sex.
Yup. HBO went from The Hangover to Real Sex and as I turned the corner from the locker room I looked on in horror as these three lovely ladies were forced to watch a woman performing unspeakable acts on a pair of older men in HD. I cringed as they tried to change the channel, but for naught as the buttons were inexplicably not working. They moved in a pack to the ellipticals and found those TVs not working either, further reinforcing the scenario that the one guy in the gym, emerging from the locker room, had been watching Real Sex.
Feeling about two inches tall I began my workout as they moved from cardio to some light weights and were gone in the time it took me to warm up. Such high strangeness, only found at night in the gym. The part of me that was raised on Rod Serling and George Noory thinks they were some elaborate ruse brought on by dehydration and card-restriction, but the reality is they probably just left the club and thought I was a creep!
For those that don't know me well, you will come to learn that I find myself in weird situations-often of my own doing!
When I worked night shift I came to fall in love with overnight workouts. For about 4 solid years I was working a shift of something like 5pm-5am and on those rare nights off, I spent a few hours training. I am not a before-work trainer and sometimes after work on night shift was just too much for my brain to handle, so I always took advantage of my nights off to get a good long one in.
My old gym, East Shore Athletic Club in Charleston, SC, had a 24 hour facility and it became my second home. I'd mop and take the trash out and clean up some nights because they didn't have an overnight staff but that's for another post. This post is about one night in particular when I found myself outwitted by the TV and shamed into submission!
Id brought my iPad with me to watch some videos and get in my hour or so of cardio. Sadly, the wifi was down and I was relegated to one treadmill that had a working TV. It was on HBO and something funny was on so I was okay with that, even thought I learned it was broken and neither the channel nor the volume could change. This night I was laser-focused! I was burning calories like a food test lab! I had my Kai Greene-esque red hoodie on, shoes to match and was pouring sweat like a crackhead going through detox!
I was pounding that poor treadmill for all it was worth and as Ric Flair said famously, "I'm a sixty minute man!" So I finish my hour plod on the treadmill and head to the locker room to cool off a minute and recharge. I was alone in the gym and like I said, this was my second home so I'm fine with taking my shirt off and lounging a bit. Taking a few selfies, hitting up some friends on Twitter-just killing time until I cool down a bit and let my protein shake digest.
Every night I go in that late (about 2am) I was alone. Always. Without fail. There would be the occasional rando, and the homeless man who moved in (more on him later) but never anything more than that. So there I am, shirtless and glistening with sweat....no, more like covered in matted chest hair, emerging from the locker room about to don my hoodie again when lo and behold 3 ladies walk in. And not just anyone, I mean super hot, Maxim cover model, Instagram-star hot women wearing next to nothing and hyped as all get out. Instantly they b-line to the treadmills and what do they find?
Real Sex.
Yup. HBO went from The Hangover to Real Sex and as I turned the corner from the locker room I looked on in horror as these three lovely ladies were forced to watch a woman performing unspeakable acts on a pair of older men in HD. I cringed as they tried to change the channel, but for naught as the buttons were inexplicably not working. They moved in a pack to the ellipticals and found those TVs not working either, further reinforcing the scenario that the one guy in the gym, emerging from the locker room, had been watching Real Sex.
Feeling about two inches tall I began my workout as they moved from cardio to some light weights and were gone in the time it took me to warm up. Such high strangeness, only found at night in the gym. The part of me that was raised on Rod Serling and George Noory thinks they were some elaborate ruse brought on by dehydration and card-restriction, but the reality is they probably just left the club and thought I was a creep!
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