Walking, Wondering, & Wishing

I went today at lunchtime.  Other days, I get there at about 9 in the morning.  Over the summer, I didn't go at all because swimming lessons made it inconvenient, but as I am deep into the gray days of winter, I'm finding it necessary to make my trips more of a priority.

I am, of course, talking about going to the gym.  I usually get to go exercise two to three times a week and it always interests me that the ages and stages of my fellow gym-mates change with the time of day.

If I go between 8:30 and 10:00 am, I find myself working out with the retirement set.  When I elect to exercise at lunch-time I am surrounded by students from the local colleges.  Each "workout group" creates its own atmosphere of fitness. 

Exercising with the retirees means that usually, I am the youngest, though not necessarily the fittest, person in the room.  I like that.  It is difficult these days to find a room in which I can make such a claim.  I notice when I exercise in the morning with this fine set of fifty, sixty and seventy somethings, that they are very well dressed for the occasion.  Once, I even saw a woman walking on the treadmill with her purse on her arm!  I was very impressed with her coordination and form.

Sometimes, I am a bit lazy find it necessary to sleep in a bit in the mornings and therefore I exercise on my Man's lunch hour with the co-eds.  I really ought to get up early, no matter what, because at the gym during lunchtime, I am usually the oldest person in the room and definitely not the fittest.  I always have on the most clothing and am terribly grateful for every inch of it.  The treadmill on which I briskly walk, is flanked on either side by blonds with bouncy ponytails who are doing amazing impersonations of gazelles as they run.  Among this group, I am most often the best sweat-er.

Please tell me when, WHEN do the thirty-something moms go to the gym?  I think I wanna exercise with them if you don't mind.  Surely there exist more like me, who find it necessary to their sanity to get to the gym.  I need some similarly "fluffy" ladies beside me on the treadmill who are coming to terms with the baby belly that remains, but who want to be healthier in body and stronger in mind. 

I want to tread beside someone who, like me, believes that 40 minutes of walking and sweating will erase the memory and consequence of two-fisting Skittles the night before.  I wanna walk beside of a woman who is thinking about what she's gonna serve for dinner while she's trying to walk off the cinnamon roll or two she ate for breakfast.

I don't know when the "Mom's Hour" is, I may never know.  Maybe my peers are in the Zumba classes or maybe they are Spinning.  Until I find them, I've decided to rise early and hop on the treadmill between the Eds and Ethels instead of sleeping in and finding myself trying to match strides with the Ashleys and Ambers!