Like a trusty barstool

One thing about this new running habit is my new affinity for the gym. I originally joined to escape the very wet fall we were having last year. Now, it’s saving me from the heat. This weekend we’re supposed to hit 100, and before it’s officially “summer”. Anyway, that’s off topic. I was discussing the gym. It’s less of an affinity more of an addiction. I need it in my day. The sanctuary of sweat and exhaustion. There’s something very therapeutic about having a place to go, a transition, between work and home. There are far fewer times that I come home exhausted and warn down from my day, no matter how hard I work myself there.

The other day on Facebook I was venting about the heat at my office, “headed to the gym at lunch just so I can have some air conditioning. Office already reads 78, and that's before the afternoon sun.” One of the women from church, who knows of my treadmill addiction, responded, “I guess you deserve to sit on the treadmill at the gym!” which I found pretty funny. I probably do deserve to rest, but I decided to try out some new exercises instead. Anyway, I responded back that the treadmill has been like a trusty barstool. (I do really appreciate my desire to run to the gym to relieve stress and get some air rather than running across the street to some bar, like I might have in my glory days.) Then, ironically, when I went back to the gym later after work (yes, I went twice in one day. See paragraph 1 – it’s an addiction.) I saw the regular lunch guy at the check-in desk along with my regular afternoon guy. It was like some weird parallel universe – we each wondered what the other was doing there so late in the day. They were teasing me that someone was on my treadmill. Then he said, “We’re like your Cheers!”

It certainly is nice to have a place to go where everybody knows your name, and which treadmill is yours, and don’t care if you eat your lunch at your desk to get an extra break away from the world that day. There are certainly worse addictions to have.

186 days left, 981 miles yet to run