My Gym

I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in a while. I did a weigh-in to see where my starting point is in my goal of getting down to about 180lbs with less body fat and  more lean muscle mass. I weighed in at 208 which was less than I thought I was but still has me losing 20-25 lbs.  I brought my daughter with me because the gym offers free baby sitting so you can bring your kid and go work out and the kid can play in a supervised environment. That is a big selling point to the gym along with other things like the pool, group exercise classes, the basketball court, they offer personal training and they have many machines so if it gets busy the odds are that there will always be an available machine.

My gym has lots of treadmills on both the first and second floors. I've found that the treadmills get very busy on Sunday evening and Monday evenings. That is because people start thinking about how much they ate over the weekend or the planned exercise time that was missed for one reason or the other. People are creatures of habit and it consistently happens that on Sunday and Monday evenings it may be difficult finding a treadmill that's open.

What do you look for in a gym?  Do you prefer joining a gym or staying in shape other ways?

Did Some Trail Running Today

Well today I decided to get away from the treadmill and run outside. I find that when you normally run on the treadmill and then one day you run outside the treadmill will actually make you run faster. The workout is slightly more difficult but overall you will run faster.

I ended up running about 2 miles and then went for a bike ride. The run took me to a sports park in town that has multiple football and baseball fields. It is bordered by a wooded area and there are some trails on the perimeter of the park that I run occasionally. I got a good sweat going and worked on some sprinting too.
Here is a link to the sports park that I was running at.

Trail running is great because you not only see how in shape you are due to not being on a treadmill conveyor belt, but you also have the hills and unsteady ground to deal with. Practice makes perfect and doing trail running will help you out with any type of outdoor team sport (football, soccer, baseball, etc). Definately add it to your training regimine as it does help with getting in shape.