on chuck, elliptical laments, and why i need a new gym

In recent weeks, my gym has been completely overrun by a fresh mob of doughy, rosy cheeked sweatsacks. The place is so mobbed as of late that it's nearly impossible to work out. I've been going later and later in the evenings in an attempt to find some open machinery, but it hasn't helped.

Take Monday night, for instance. I timed my visit to the gym to coincide with my favorite television show, Chuck. It's such a brilliant parade of never-ending references to great films, music, and all that was right with the 1980s, and it's the only show I'm so excited to see that I don't like to wait for the next day's Hulu broadcast (I don't have TV reception at home). As such, I like to go to the gym and run on the treadmill for an hour while I watch the show.

This Monday night, however, there weren't any open treadmills. The gym has something like 65 treadmills, but they were all taken. Every last one of them. It's been like that for the past two weeks, and I've had a hard time running as a result. Normally, I'd just go upstairs and lift instead (the weight area is also mobbed, but you can usually find an open bench somewhere, though it often means doing a military press when you want to be doing squats), but the whole point of being at the gym that night was to watch Chuck. I needed to be at a stationary exercise machine, each of which is equipped with its own TV and headphone jack. A quick scan of the gym's 200+ pieces of cardio equipment showed 1 open stair stepper, 3 elliptical machines, and a handful of bikes. I let Tracy have the stair stepper, I don't get a good workout on the bikes, so I saddled up on one of the elliptical machines.

Now, you need to understand something: I hate elliptical machines. Hate them. With a passion. I don't know if I'm not tall enough to use them properly, or if I just lack some vital posture requirement that makes these things usable (why do my feet always go numb?), or maybe I just don't get it. Regardless, watching me work out on an elliptical can't be far removed from watching a monkey fuck a football: humorous and hard to look away from, but sad and embarrassing at the same time. Which is why I hate them. Hate hate hate. I typically do my best to avoid them like the plague, but I had about 60 seconds to find an open piece of cardio equipment with a TV or I was going to miss my favorite show. That couldn't happen. Yes, I'm a raving, rabid fanboy. No, I don't care. Sacrifices had to be made. Elliptical machines had to be used. What other choice was there?

Undoubtedly, this new influx of fitness-minded nocturnes are the result of holiday overindulgence or everyone's favorite New Years cliché, the "I'll get fit this year" resolution. They must know that they're getting in the way of my own clichéd New Years weight loss resolution. My hope is that everyone will lose their handful of holiday pounds and quickly go back to their previous sedentary evening routines. They need to go. They're getting in the way of my wedding weight loss plan. More importantly, they're getting in the way of my Chuck watching.