Posted by Jim at February 8th, 2007

One of the benefits from Kristen’s job is partial subsidy of a YMCA membership.

She signed up for it soon after starting work there and actually received it in early January. Grand Rapids’ downtown YMCA (the David D. Hunting YMCA) is only a couple years old. It’s features include a track, swimming pool (with slide), racquetball courts, endless exercise machines, a couple climbing walls, multiple basketball courts, childcare (!), and undoubtedly things I’ve forgotten. For example, one can also take guitar, piano, dancing, martial arts, swimming, and climbing wall lessons.

I’m interested the climbing wall, but haven’t gotten around to doing much about it yet. Mostly I’ve been running and taking our kids to the swimming pool.

Running inside is a vast improvement over running outside when the temperature is in the single digits. It’s a little boring in terms of scenary, but it could be worse. Windows run the length of the building and since the track is on the third floor, you can look out over the city–if you’re into that sort of thing. Personally, I’m too busy reflecting on how tired I am.

Other things I think about while running around the track:
1. Row after row of exercise equipment covers half the third floor. As a result, half the floor is covered with tired looking people lifting weights while sitting or standing in identical machines. Do you remember that bit in the Matrix? The bit where Morpheus tells Neo about the row after row of babies being created to power the machines? The bit where the babies are being fed the remains of the dead?

For some reason I keep on thinking about that when I look at the exercise machines.
2. Another thing I think of while running: Proper track etiquette.
According to the rules that they put up on the signs next to the track, walkers are supposed to use the inside lane. They are also supposed to check what direction the traffic is going on a particular day and go the same direction as everyone else. It is a given, therefore, that some people will completely ignore these directions.

One thing that particularly irritates me is when several people walk next to each other, blocking the entire track. This is bad in that it forces me to consider three bad choices.
–Pushing straight through. This is rude, but tempting.
–Running behind them. This just sucks.
–Passing them in the fourth lane. Problem is, there is no fourth lane. It’s actually the support beam lane. In a collision between a support beam and a person, the support beam wins.

3. Cool Ideas for my novel, role playing games and computer programming.
Too bad I can’t remember them when I get off the track.

The only really bad point about the YMCA is that if you go after work with kids, it takes a really long time. By the time we get home, it’s often 7:30 and we still haven’t eaten supper. Our kids are as you might expect them to be at that point–bouncing off the walls. In our case, this can specifically mean jumping off the top of the grand piano and trying to make it to the couch.

We try to stop this.

In any case, a family membership is overall a good thing. It’s just a bit better on the weekend than weekdays.