Meet My Office Gym

Today, I was intent on getting down to use my new membership to the office gym!  I wanted to get in my first elliptical workout ever and I didn't want to have an audience so I went at 11am.

Of course - it was when I was in the sketchy bathroom on the main floor where the entrance to the change room is that I discovered my card hasn't been activated for the change room.  Oy.  So I had to very quickly and carefully change in the handicap washroom.  But then I could walk down the hall to our gym.

Phew - coast was clear...and I was free to take pictures! It's actually a fairly well equipped gym.  The YMCA manages it and everything is really clean and in good repair.  This is the first time I've ever belonged to a gym, but for $15/month I might actually get some good use out of it this winter!

Who's that girl sneaking into the photos?

 Meet my little buddy for the next half hour...it felt so skinny compared to my treadmill!

 And so it began...I hopped on and started to "run" (pedal? ellipticate?)  But not before having a communication issue with the machine.  Someone had set it to German.  French, I could have muddled through...but one semester of German 16 years ago was no help here! I had to figure out how to get it back into something I could read and that took a few minutes...but then I was off and running again...

Honestly - if, like me, you have never been on an elliptical before - it is an odd machine.  Kind of like running but kind of like biking and the moving handles feel like you are working out your arms too (hopefully I won't be paying for that one tomorrow on my 28k).

Here's a really attractive one taken from the book stand...

Once I'd figured out the controls, I decided to have some fun with it.  I was going at a decent pace to hit 5k in half an hour.   So I threw in some super speedy ones, where my arms did most of the work.  Even got myself up to around Ryan Hall's half marathon record which made me giggle (I'm sure the one girl who'd come in to do planks thought I was quite strange - this is WHY I've never belonged to a gym before)

Trying to sneak a non-blurry mirror shot

In the end...it was just over 5k done in half an hour.  I found my feet slid around on the "pedals" a fair bit, but it was nice to not have any impact on my knees and I felt like I still got a decent workout.  But I think the calories on the machine are low balled. And if they aren't - then I'm going running because I can run shorter for higher calorie burn....

Yeah - I'll probably be back...but next time I'm bringing entertainment.   Netflix on my tablet and my Yurbuds may be exactly what I need.  I wonder how long it will be before people are in there and pestering me to tell them why I snap photos of everything...