Clicking off the laps

Today I started my new routine. Up at 5am. Arrive at the Y at 5:30. Walk/Run 30 minutes on the track. Go home, shower, get dressed, write for 30 minutes and then start work. So far so good.

Although, I must say, I'm not really sure if I fit in at the Y with the 5:30AM crowd.

I used to think that all the people in my town were fat. I felt like Twiggy everywhere I went. Which I admit was kinda nice. Brian once said, that he didn't think we made the weight class to shop at the local Walmart. But now I know. There is a leaner more fit contingent of Warehamites (Warehamians?) and while I've obviously never frequented the same haunts as they do, I know now they hang out at the Wareham Y at 5:30AM. And even though I was there the second the doors were unlocked, the best parking I could find was in the last row.

It looks like most of those people though, hang out in the "wellness center." Which is basically a room full of what looks like ancient torture devices including weights, treadmills, etc. I prefer the track which for a brief moment today, looked like I would have all to myself. That was fine with me, no point in badly embarrassing myself on my very first day.

The first person to join me on the track was a woman with a good 20 years on me. I felt pretty good (and young and fit) as I lapped her the first time around. She was walking on the inside lane I was walking on the outside. (I have chosen to walk on the outside lane because it only takes 17 laps to make a mile instead of the 19 it takes on the inside lane. My brain has not yet figured out that the reason it's fewer laps is because the laps are longer, and please don't tell it. I'm hoping it won't figure it out.) I felt pretty good about myself as I was sure she felt the whoosh of my air current as I passed her several times on my way to a 12 minute mile. Of course, she weighed probably about 50 pounds less than I do so maybe she wasn't so jealous of me after all.

This brings us to two points that are true potential causes of embarrassment that may force me to find a time at the gym when there are more old, fat people like me.

First, I've had to buy a clicker. You know one of those little metal round things that sit on your finger and you press a little button on it and it keeps a count. Like the one the guy at Costco uses. Why Costco needs to pay a guy to stand at the door and click off people is beyond me, but it's another guy off the unemployment line so I guess it's fine. And after this experience at the Y, I will have mastered the clicker, and if I ever need to maybe I can apply for the Clicker job at my local Costco because I will have had clicker experience.

Anyway, I need the clicker because it became clear to me, when I came to the Y for my guest visits, that it was impossible for me to focus enough keep track of how many laps I did in my head. The only reason it's important is because when you calculate how many calories you burn by walking/running, you have to tell the tool what "pace" you are going and the only way I can know that is if I count the laps/miles.

The first time I went, I tried to keep track in my head. Ok, I thought, every time I pass the door, I'll add one. That worked up until about 3. Suddenly I found myself across the track looking at the door thinking, "did I count that lap?" or having my mind wander off to whereever it disappears to when I'm not looking, only to find that 10 minutes had passed yet I still only held the number "4" in my head.

The second visit, I tried keeping track on my fingers, I'm not sure what I was going to do when I got to 11, possibly employ some form of ancient chinese abacus methodology, but again, too many laps went by without my mind being present, and I completely lost track. Amazingly the clicker did the trick. Something about having the cold metal pressed in my hand kept me focused, and while I garnered looks from some of the other people who had joined me, I thought maybe they'd just think it was cute in that pathetic way you think old people are cute.

Speaking of those other people who joined me, that too was a problem for a couple of reasons. A very very very fit young guy, I'd say early to mid 30s entered the track about 15 minutes after I got there. Every once and a while, my internal filter gets tested and this was definitely one of those times. When I first saw him, all hard body and short shorts, I wanted to say, "excuse me, would you have time for a quickie in the locker room when you are done here?" But I didn't. Internal filter on. Check. He lapped me over and over again and then, as fast as he came, he flew out the door. I thought, good, go. But then he was back and I realized, he was going out the door, running up and down the stairs and then taking a few more laps around (I couldn't count his laps since I only had one clicker). That's when I had to employ the filter again and suppress my gut reaction to scream out, "fucking show off...." The problem is, that while I might be able to filter what comes out of my mouth. I'm not always aware that things are leaking out.

There are several noises that really get on my nerves. Not like "nails on a blackboard" get on your nerves but like people smacking their lips when they eat kind of get on your nerves. The kind of sounds that make you want to walk over to the person making the noise and simply strangle them. A bouncing basketball is one of those noises. I have never been able to tolerate listening to a bouncing basketball for more than a few minutes before I want to put an ice pick through said ball. That's kind of a problem for me because the track at the Y is right over the basketball courts and surprisingly enough, at 5:30 in the morning there are people playing basketball. I wish they'd get a life. But until they do, I'm destine to crank up the volume on my ipod to drown out the noise that would otherwise be driving me batty. Ok, more batty than usual.

So the problem with this is that remember, I often suffer from mouth leakage. And with the ipod so loud, I can't always hear what's coming out of my mouth. My intention is to sing along with the peppier songs on my ipod playlist that Sara made for me, ONLY in my head. But often times, I will catch a glance of someone smiling at me, in the kind of way you would smile at young child doing something cute or a senile old woman just out of sheer embarrassment for her, and yeah, then I realize that while I THOUGHT I was belting out "don't stop believing...." in my head, in fact, some of it may have leaked out of my mouth and been ever so slightly audible to everyone else on the track.

Maybe there is a tool I can use, like I solved my lap counting problem, to remind me to not let noise leak out of my mouth. You think duct tape would look bad?