Bright Shiny Machines

For a girl who works out at home, hotel gyms can be a God-send.  They mean that occasionally I get an fully equipped gym all to myself.

More often, with the places I go for work, they mean a small closet with one recumbent bike.  But I digress.

The good kind happened recently on an overnight stay in Santiago.

I wandered down to the gym early on a Sunday morning.  A friendly man greeted me and handed me a towel and a bottle of water.  There were bowls of fresh fruit and racks of magazines.  I stared down a full bank of blinking treadmills and ellipticals, which looked out through floor to ceiling windows.  Happy music was playing.  The lighting was perfect.

Cue Hallelujah chorus

There was also an area full of weight machines and equipment – the fancy “gym” stuff that I don’t know how to use and some of which scares me a little.

In the back, there was a mirrored hardwood studio with racks of free weights, stability balls, benches.  There was one other soul in the whole place.  Otherwise…just me.

I was like a kid in a candy store.  Because my home gym looks like this…

No, it’s not a ‘pile of junk’; it’s a ‘home gym’

Now, I’m not knocking my home gym.  Between it and the sidewalk, it means I work-out with significant efficiency.  It means that I am done and making coffee in the time it would take me to pack my bag, drive to a gym, and walk across the parking lot.  In my world, efficiency trumps all.

But still, a real live gym was exciting stuff.

I wandered around for a bit, coming up with a workout plan.  I eventually hopped on an enormous treadmill.   I pushed a bunch of  flashing buttons.  Things happened that led me to believe I was doing sprints around a 400 metre track.  I think at points a virtual crowd burst into applause.

Then I did some free weights in the studio.  Miraculously I could work in circuits of double under jump ropes without knocking white stuff down off the ceiling.  I could do walking lunges without having to veer around couches and kids’ toys.  In the mirrors I could check my form.  Turns out, folks, I don’t look like Jessica Zelinka when I work out.  That came as a surprise.

In the end, I tried a bunch of stuff.  And I worked out longer than usual because of it.  I also used a lot of fresh towels.  And left with two apples.  Simply because I could.

Yes, it was just another work-out.  But it had a kick of something extra that comes from a new environment. I may not have access bright shiny machines for a while.  So I’ll take, clock it, and keep on keeping on.