Who's the girl here?

I'm still seething with quiet rage over the Sunday gym thing. I'm mildly surprised at my passion about it. I guess respect for the facility and it's cleanliness means more to me than I would have thought.

I rode my bike into work today :-) It's exhausting and not the riding part, the preparation for the ride. I need to work on that, lighten the load, get the routine down, blah, blah blah. Here's my prep for those interested:

Yesterday evening

• Pump the tires up to full pressure. CHECK
• Pack for Workout (shorts, socks, towel) - CHECK
• Pack for Work (pants, socks, shoes, shirt, wallet, undies, blah blah blah) - CHECK
• Pack for Ride home (shorts, new shirt, the workout one will be too sweaty (yuck!)) - CHECK
• Pack Gear (laptop, power cord, USB cable for Garmin, Garmin, HR strap, workout routine, blah blah) - CHECK

It's A LOT of crap to support Bill through his busy day isn't it?

I then start shoving the stuff into the two panniers I have, I'm holding the trunk in reserve for the bright yellow 'please don't hit me' wind breaker I wear in in the morning. It's an art of sorts, packing the panniers since you want the weight in each fairly balanced or the bike gets overly tipsy. I then get to remember what pannier holds what. Good mental exercise ::rueful smile::

I attach the Garmin to the bike, check the fleas which still have plenty of power for being so tiny and call it a night.

The alarm goes off at 4:26am and I just kinda lay there and think about it. I'm also listening for rain but mostly deciding if I'm going to ride in or not. Heck, I did all this work so I groan (quietly!), get up, shave, dress, fill the water bottle and brew a latte for my nifty new bike thermos. I'm dying to see how that works!

I load the panniers on the bike, the water bottle and thermos, turn on the Garmin, bring in the paper, turn on all three blinkies, and close the garage door.

AT THIS moment in time, after all the above Bill is finally riding into work.

I don't push it, my average cadence was 59rpm with an average speed of around 13mph. It's a beautiful morning, the sun still hasn't risen but the east is growing ever brighter and the birds are singing all about it. I'm mostly alone, just a few cars are about. Fifteen minutes later I'm at the gym.

I bring the bike in, unhook the panniers, place the bike behind the desk and head into the locker rooms. I rummage around in the panniers looking for Bubbles ABS routine and changing into my gym shorts. Today is 30mins of tempo followed by core and I'm kinda in the mood, ya know?

I pick 'my' elliptical, set if for 30 minutes at level 13 and go. I get my heart rate up there pretty quickly (the bike ride in is a nice warm up) but I'm looking at my average HR and it's around 115. What's up with that? I work a little harder, shoving my HR up above 150 before I realize the average HR is for the entire workout, including my sauntering bike ride in. I decide to keep it around there and thirty didn't seem too bad to me. It also chewed up about 400 calories :-)

While I'm banging it out on the elliptical awesomeGirl comes in and glares at me with open hostility. I smile and call out to her, "Twenty minutes." She storms off to the treadmill after her temptress ways of mentioning Bob Evans failed her. She joins IronMan who's on the middle machine. I'm in some weird funk just kinda glancing around the gym noting the two wipes left by one of the machines. Is that my fate? To become the Felix Ungar of the gym? I decide to let it go glancing up at the TV where I'm treated to some man with fake boobs wearing a green woman's bathing suit being tugged into jail by two cops for booking.

Well that has to be embarrassing, caught by the fashion police and drug past the local news cameras, but he deserved it I figure, green is so NOT his color! It's times like that I wish I could hear the news. Then the usual real horrors begin and I avert my eyes.

IronMan is by the weights with goodMood and they're discussing some routine IronMan has pulled out of mothballs. I look to my left and awesomeGirl is standing there tapping a dumbbell in her hand looking at me speculatively. I glance down at the clock, "Two minutes and a five minute cool down." I figure I need the cool down, I'm totally covered in sweat.

She's good with that and wanders off.

I wrap up, wipe the machine down, dodge awesomeGirl scrambling up onto the elliptical and head to the lockers. Time for a coffee break! It's between hot and warm and tastes really yummy. I stroll out to the gym where IronMan is still doing his thing. It's some sort of routine called The Five Minute Workout and is broken down into Monday, Wednesday, Friday with each day holding three sets of five workouts (like curls) that you're suppose to do for one minute each. I note that unlike MY workout there is no "Annoy awesomeGirl" and I begin to lose interest.

IronMan finally catches a wiff of the coffee and laughs, "You really are drinking coffee?!"

mmhmm. I'm really enjoying it - I haven't tried it before a thirty minute tempo workout but intuition tells me that might not be a good idea. For the ABS I don't think it will bother me and it didn't. I'm gonna have to do that again!

I take my shower, dress for work, reload the panniers being careful to pack the wet towel on top so I can dry it in my work locker and ride slowly over to work. It's even prettier - sigh. This time of year at this time of day is my favorite methinks.

I notice Ally's bike as I'm taking the panniers off. I have GOT to get a photo of that thing! Just a little purplish bike with a helmet on the seat - sigh. I'm going to have to talk to Ally about her Spartan existence. I have so much junk! Who's the girl here?

Have a great day.