Well, I've hit a snag on the workout trail.

I was fine this morning; got up at 4:00 like a good little maniac so I could walk the dog, eat breakfast, and hit the gym. This was my second morning workout this week. I'm trying to ease into the full 5-day schedule.

But I was feeling oddly motivated, and, with my papers graded (see, I'm being good and getting my work graded promptly), I decided I'd squeeze in a second workout today. So I headed upstairs in our school gym to the weight room to scope the place out, see what machines and things we've got available, and maybe lift some weights or something.

BUT HORRORS! The weight room was full of 8th grade boys (the worst kind!); I assume it's the boys' basketball team or something (the high school is girls only, but the rest of the school is coed--at times). One of the last things in the world I really want to do is share a weight room with a bunch of 8th grade boys. I felt my enthusiasm towards my second workout of the day slip away. So now I'm back in my classroom, weighing (interesting how often that word can come up) my options.

First of all, what to do about today? I could work at the reorganization of my classroom, certainly, and that probably is what I'll end up doing. Or I could go for a run outside, either on the track here at the school or around the neighborhood. Not my favorite option. First of all, we've established that I don't like to run, anywhere. But I really don't want to run here, where there are students around to be judgmental (at least in my mind they will be). I don't know why I care, but I do. I'm embarrassed. I didn't bring my swim suit, so a quick swim before practice is out. Guess a forced reorganization it is.

Then, there is the question of what to do on subsequent nights. I could go through the effort of e-mailing all the coaches to find out what group or groups use the weight room in the evenings. I could commit to the dreaded run in the afternoons instead of weight training. I could drive down to my gym, squeeze in a quick workout, and drive back up for practice (unlikely, especially with my lacrosse and swimming seasons starting their annual overlap--I won't get done with lacrosse usually until about 5, which wouldn't leave me enough time to get to the gym, work out, and get back in time for my 7 o'clock swim practice). I could go purchase hand weights, a yoga mat, and a toner ball and work out in my classroom (I've been tempted to do this before, but I suppose the nightly cleaning crew would find me a little odd--like they don't already). Or I could start packing my swim suit and a second towel and start heading to the pool right after I finish with whatever my afternoon obligations are. That is my most preferred option: I like to swim, nobody will look at me weird because everyone there is doing it and I'm not that bad at it anyway, and I'll be able to just drag myself out of the pool and start practice with no down time or anything in between.

I've only got six more weeks to worry about it anyway, because once swimming is done I can just head down to the gym after lacrosse practice, work out, and go home.

But because swimming isn't a great weight loss work out (your body actually will keep a layer of fat as a defense against cold water and drowning--your body likes to be warm and buoyant), I'll need to work extra hard in my morning workouts, every morning, to make up for it. I improved this morning over Monday; Monday I burned 600 calories in about 47 minutes. Today I hit 600 in just over 45, and I went to 48. I'm working myself up to an hour. Perhaps I can also alternate in the mornings, doing an hour of cardio two mornings each week and doing twenty minutes of cardio, twenty minutes of leg weights, and twenty minutes of arm weights (or something like that) the other three days. We'll see. I'll examine the machines at the gym later this week (we got a whole bunch of new ones at the end of the year, and I haven't tried any of them yet) and see what might make a good workout.

*sigh* Well, now that the whole working out thing is worked out (like how nicely I got that in there? You knew it was coming, right?), on to the reorganization project. I've got a pile of crap on my desk here that needs to be pawed through and thrown or squirreled away somewhere. Yippee.