I’ve been exercising for almost two weeks now.

I’ve worked out on eleven of the last sixteen days. Two of those days I’ve done 30 minutes of walking and one of those days I did 25 minutes on the Elliptical machine; the rest of the days I did 45 minutes on the treadmill. I’ve logged 20.07 miles in that time.

Monday night I RAN for 30 of my 45 minutes. I’ll let that sink in for a second. Moi. Me. I ran for 30 minutes Monday night.

Not very fast. But I did it for 30 minutes. I’ve been reading DoctorMama’s Blog. She says to start slow. So slow that you could walk faster. So I warmed up for about 7 minutes and then began running with the treadmill set at 3 mph.

Let me tell you, if there is any doubt in your mind, 3mph is SLOW. So slow that I felt a little ridiculous and very self conscious. Especially since I picked a treadmill a little ways down from a rail thin woman who was running when I got on my treadmill. I peeked at her treadmill stats, she was doing 5.00 mph. She was STILL running when I got off mine 45 minutes later and still doing 5.00 MPH. 3 MPH is SLOW.

To counter my self-consciousness, this is my mature and adult-like side, I don’t make eye contact with anyone. This wasn’t too hard because the only other person there was my 5 MPH friend and I’d picked a treadmill in a corner and could have only gotten one treadmill further away from her and the traffic of people coming and going.

I’ve not yet figured out the “rules” about being at the health club. It’s been a number of years since I worked out on a regular basis. At the Y it was always so busy that you had to be close to people because all the machines were in use. But here? There will be maybe two or three people working out on the Cardio Equipment. And there are 8 or so treadmills to choose from. I don’t want to invade anyone’s personal space; but I don’t want to pick something so far away that it’s insulting. I don’t want to be so close I feel like they are invading my space either.

Something else that makes me self-conscious and want to be far from others when I work out. I sweat. A lot. And not just on my face but all over my body. My underarms. My crotch. My feet, my butt. It is gross. The other night I could feel the sweat rolling down my arms and dropping onto the treadmill. I felt a little proud. I’d reached some kind of workout milestone. At the same time, I was totally grossed out that I was dripping sweat onto the equipment.

Also, my sense of smell is heightened since I quit smoking. I smell EVERYTHING these days. And I’m convinced I smell myself. David scoffs at me when I come in from the gym and ask him, “do I stink?” But I don’t want people to wander by me and say, “whoa, that ole girl needs a shower!”

Or do I?

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