Freakishly Cold

I went to Irving Gym yesterday for a cross-training day. I rode the bike. I rode for half an hour on the most uncomfortable stationary exercise bike I have ever met. I generally ride a mountain bike, so the bike I rode was the touring bike from hell. Riding it was like riding to Florida on a unicycle with no seat. It was bad. Like this:

Not only was it uncomfortable, but it was fucking boring! Riding in one place for half an hour watching at the same muscle-bound frat boys lift weights incorrectly is not high on my list of “Top Ten Things to Do Before I Die”—right up there with watching skinny little girls reading fashion magazines, barely pedaling with their bikes set on a tension of two, and flirting with the frat boys.

Apparently, to watch yourself in the mirror while doing inclined sit-ups holding a medicine ball is the new wave of exercise coolness. I might make it into a game of peek-a-boo. (Up, look in the mirror:  I see you. Down, look serious and cool: Where’s Corby?) I am sure abdominal work like that would make me sea-sick. I would need a dimenhydrinate drip to make it through the workout.

There is a whole psychology to the gym. One that fucks me up a little every time I go there.

Possibly, I need a thorazine drip after leaving the gym.

I absolutely despise exercising indoors, unless I am swimming. Then I like being indoors, unless I can be in the ocean. I hate that I don’t have to work hard at all to break a sweat while riding the stationery bike or walking on a treadmill. Yesterday, I rode the hell out of that little stationary bike. I only got seven miles, a t-shirt neck sweat-ring the size of China, a further damaged hymen, and the inside track on undergraduate mating rituals.

The sad part of all of this is that it looks like I will get to go to the gym again today, since it is 10 below zero right now. At least the sun is shining. Maybe I will wait until this afternoon and attempt to jog outside. In the sun. By the river.