10 May 2015

I was hoping that the gym would be pretty quiet today; I hadn't yet braved it on the weekend, but I hoped that with today being Mother's Day that people would be busy with that instead of working out, plus, how many times can I use "that" in a sentence? Too many, it seems.

The drive over made me marginally concerned: it took 15 minutes to get from the Interstate on-ramp to the exit two miles down, but then I remembered this tiny town was hosting a huge fair, and 63,000,892 people were likely headed that way.

Sheep and gross fried food don't appeal to me, so going to the Mayfair hadn't entered my mind.

I squealed a bit when I saw the near-empty gym parking lot, and might have squealed a little more when I got out to the pool and there was only one other person in it. I geared up (I wear way too much crap while swimming, but I love my gadgets so...shuddup) and slid in, and started what I thought would be 2000 meters.

w00t! 3000m

It's the distance I've been swimming; when I hit 2000 in under an hour, I mentally patted myself on the back. I may be slow, but I hit my first major goal within a few weeks of joining the gym. I didn't intend to go further than that, but today I got to 2K in 55 minutes and wasn't wasted, so I pushed on.

I was focused on my heart rate, so I didn't pay as close of attention to time and distance as I normally would, and at some point I glanced at my Garmin and realized I was over 2500 meters, so what the hell...let's go for 3K.

At 1:19ish, I reached it. I didn't cheer out loud, but I was happy enough that I forgot to turn the timer off, so it ran until 1:37...but I'd paused it, so my stats still show my actual swim time.

As I peeled all my gear off I had notions that I still had some energy left and almost decided to go a few hundred meters more, but it was getting late and I wanted to stop by the grocery store on the way home, so I got out and headed for the locker room. And then it hit me.

Oh holy hell, I got out of the pool and walked right into The Wall. As I peeled off my swim suit and dried off, I could feel it creeping up on me and thought I would need to sit in the lobby for a bit before driving home. But when I started getting dressed...let's just say it wasn't pretty and for a few minutes I thought I was going to have to ask someone for help. I was so drained that just getting a bra on was proving to be problematic.

Ever watched a little kid try to grab something stuck to their back? That was me, spinning in the aisle between lockers, trying to grab the back of my bra to pull it down.

Look! REAL SWEAT!

So glad no one walked in.

Getting my shirt on wasn't much better and I don't know why it didn't occur to me to just sit down on the bench by that point. When I finally did, to put my shoes on, the thought zipped through my head that feeling like that might be because my blood sugar was low...but I checked it, and it was exactly 100.

Nope, this was just the effect of being overweight and out of shape and pushing a bit. And the contortions to get clothes on was another workout in itself, but neither Garmin nor Fitbit gave me any activity time for that.

I feel cheated.

I mean, I broke a sweat!

I left the gym 5 hours ago and I'm still wiped out, and I can feel the soreness creeping into my shoulders and back. I'm either going to sleep like a rock tonight, or I won't be able to because it hurts too much.

Still...I'm really enjoying the swimming.

Oh, and Garmin...there is no way in hell I burned off 840 calories swimming for 80 minutes. I wish I had, but face it, I'm slow.

Besides, if I really believed I could burn off that much, I would totally follow it with pizza.

Damn. Now I want pizza.