The Gym Rat Shuffle

If you know me, then you know that I get up and work out at the butt crack of dawn every morning to work out. Recently, the gym I currently go to (Fitness Edge) is really ticking me off. I use to get up at 5:15 - 5:30 am and would call in to the gym to reserve a bike for the next morning’s spin class. After making the call, I get ready and go to the gym. Actually, when I first started going there I would wake up at 5:15am drive down there and sign up in person, but after not getting in a couple of times I started calling once I woke up.

Fitness Edge has now switched to an online registration system. Apparently their front desk people are over worked…must be all the smoothies they are making. (Special Note: I have never once seen anyone waiting for a smoothie.) I don’t mind the system going online, what I do mind is that I now must wake up before 5am so that I can get to their website and press “reserve” on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings so that I can get a bike for the next day’s class. On Wednesday morning the Thursday class was totally reserved (27 bikes) in two minutes. This is crazy!!! I sat in bed with my laptop and just laughed at the absurdity of how fast the class filled up.

I have belonged to many a gym before and have never encountered spin classes being totally packed at all hours. This is becoming so insane! It’s almost like Russian Roulette or something. The other crazy thing to me is that everyone at the spin class the next day is talking about how fast the class fills up. It is gymsanity.

I really think the solution is to move the class from 5:45am to 5:30am so that they could have a 6:30am class afterwards or build a bigger bike studio. The bike studio is pretty small and the bikes are very worn down. Maybe they need to start charging more that $19.99 a month and stop having so many promo’s for people to join the gym. I should write them a letter…

I know-- a good solution to my problem would be to actually ride my road bike outside. Brilliant! Right?...Wrong. I am so scared to ride out here. The road’s are poor there is little to no bike lane, drivers are crazy, and I have no one to ride with. I have looked into tri-clubs, but the one closest to be is uber competitive and the other one is a bit far away to make it for rides by 6am on a Sunday. For these reasons, I will remain a slave to my computer at 4:55 in the morning. It’s actually not that bad, it’s just that I cannot believe how many people are vying for spots for a 5:45am spin class. I guess they are all just as crazy as me about getting a good workout in before starting the day.

Here’s to working out and waking up before the sun comes up!