A Trip to the Gym

The Sanctuary

Out of all the buildings on campus the Alumni Gymnasium is one of my favorites. My love for this special place has come about through various means. Before arriving on campus I was someone who loved to workout sans the gym. Running outside was a great passion of mine with some crunches on my bedroom floor thrown in for good measure. Ever since coming to Union, I have become obsessed with the gym.
I think part of it is because of the atmosphere. I love walking into the gym and being greeted and/or smiled at by those students at the front desk. It puts me in a good workout kind of mood. When heading up to the gym I can gaze out at the swimmers diving into Union's beautiful pool. I like to imagine myself diving off the high dive with such grace, even when I know this will never be possible due to my lack of elegance and my irrational fear of the high dive. Terrifying. Before I enter the actual gym area I usually make my way to the bathroom as running on the treadmill with a full bladder is a nightmare waiting to happen. I love the bathroom at the gym, which is really a weird thing to say. The bathroom is usually empty, doesn't smell like decaying animals, and has cheerful yellow stalls. My kind of place. After my bathroom stop it is time to enter the gym. Ahhhh, the Alumni Gym.
I have two reasons for going to the gym. One is to attend my wellness classes and the other is to do my partner workout with my suite mate. I take two wellness classes, but I really only attend one regularly because I am not as interested in the other. Dance Cardio Fusion is so much fun every single class I find it almost impossible to want to attend Kickboxing. I was let down the first day of kickboxing when I realized we actually weren't kicking giant punching bags. We simply shuffle around and punch the air a few times. Sadly lame compared to my intense dance class. Dance Cardio Fusion takes place in one of the little classrooms off of the gym. It combines all different types of dance so you can never be bored. So far we have done African dancing, the Jive, hip hop, country hoe down (one of my personal favorites), modern, and some crazy 80's dance moves. All in all a terrific class which doesn't meet enough. The second reason for going to the gym is my partner workouts with Gina. We started doing this end of fall term and although some weeks we haven't followed through we are beginning to pick back up on the workouts. I love these workouts as we encourage the other to push themselves harder in order to live a healthy lifestyle. We also have created our own diet which consists of anything and everything healthy (this of course we only really stick to on the weekdays...sometimes you just have to have those fries on Saturday night). The workout consists of 20 minutes on the elliptical, 15 on the treadmill, 30 for crunches and weight activities, 15 back on the elliptical, and a cool down of 10 minutes on the treadmill. When it gets warmer we have decided to add a swimming component to our little workout.
So back to my description of the Alumni Gym. It is full of ellipticals, treadmills, stationary bikes, weight machines, and mats for misc. activities. I love using the elliptical and being able to watch my favorite crime dramas. It seems the channel is always tuned to some type of crime show and I could not be happier. The absolute worst is coming in to the gym and finding that all the televisions have been turned to some sort of sports channel. Hockey I can deal with, every other sport makes me want to hurl the T.V. out the window in sheer boredom (Don't worry I would never actually do this!). Although I believe there should be more of a mat area to do crunches on, I do like how the gym has little mats you can drag across the floor and position yourself. The water fountain is also near by if you forget to bring a water bottle so that is a nice bonus. I have never been downstairs in the Alumni Gym. I believe there is another, more intense weight room down there, but as I have the arm strength of a baby lizard I have never felt the need to check it out. There are also squash courts I have never had the pleasure of seeing as I played squash in high school and have been scarred for life by it (I played against my coach and was smacked so hard in the head that I fell on the floor half dead...).
During fall term I also used to frequent the swimming pool during open swim hours. I was usually the only person who went during these times and it was absurd that there were five lifeguards to one little me. I remember getting decked out in my friends flaming hot pink and bright orange one-piece swim suit complete with crazy eyed goggles and a metallic swim bonnet. If you think that looked incredible imagine me wearing it while swimming .1 miles an hour in Union's pool. I have never been the fastest swimmer and on top of that I can't swim with regular strokes, I have to doggy paddle. I am a happy embarrassment when swimming. I have recently had to stop my swimming as it is freezing outside to the point where my hair turns into icicles and I fear that it will break off and cause me to become bald. Thankfully spring seems to be approaching which means that I will once again be able to make the trek to the pool every night in order to swim my painfully slow laps in perfect contentment. I love the gym!