New Gym Thoughts

Annette and I changed gyms this summer. We had been members of the One On One Athletic Club, which we had joined after we moved here in ’98. For a variety of different reasons I won’t go into now, we decided to move our athletic activities to the Washtenaw County Rec Center. This has been a move that has been interesting in a bunch of different ways:

• The Washtenaw County Rec Center is significantly cheaper than One On One– SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper, like a third of the amount we were paying in dues.
• The WCRC has a pool, which Annette likes plenty.
• The WCRC has plenty of the things that I like to do: the eliptical machines, the bikes, the weight machines, etc. They also have an indoor track that is pretty nice, too.
• The locker rooms at the WCRC aren’t all that great. This has been more of an issue for Annette than me since I have yet to use the WCRC locker rooms (so far, I do my thing and come home to get cleaned up), though it makes me think that the women’s locker room at One on One were better than the men’s locker rooms.
• The “Beautiful People” are not members of the WCRC. This is interesting because at One on One, I was certainly one of the more “flabby” and middle-aged members, especially in relation to the kept wives (who, while middle-aged, did nothing but exercise), the students from U of M, and the muscle-head types. In contrast, the WCRC definitely caters to the senior set. It is not at all unusual for me, pushing 40, to be the youngest person in the work-out room, sometimes by 20 years. A lot of folks with walkers and canes, which is good I guess– hey, they need the exercise too, right?– but passing them on the walking track can be kinda tricky.
• There are no TVs over the treadmills and eliptical machines at the WCRC like there were at One on One. On the down-side, I kinda miss watching the news or whatever while working out. On the up-side, they don’t play any thunka-thunka-thunka music in the place (I think the old people would throw fits), which means I can listen to my own music on my iPod.
• And I guess in the end, the WCRC is not making me any skinnier any faster than One on One. I don’t know what to make of this yet….