How on earth do people get in a workout on their lunch breaks, I ASK YOU. Really, though.

I am lucky in a couple of relevant ways when it comes to midday workouts: 1) we have a really nice gym/rec center here on campus where I can go work out, and 2) on days when I’m not in the classroom, my schedule is fairly flexible. Today I decided to take advantage of these things and do my run at the gym in the middle of the workday. I prefer morning runs, but today I had an appointment that made that impossible, so this was my Plan B.

Y’all, it took me over two hours from the moment I stepped out of my office until the moment I returned. Here’s what happened during that time:

• Walked to rec center, stopping to grab my gym bag from my car on the way
• Changed clothes
• Grabbed a treadmill and did a quick walking warmup, stretched, ran about 5 miles in about 48 minutes, then a walking cool down and stretch. (This, the workout itself, took up an hour of the total time.)
• Went back to the locker room, showered, dressed, dried hair, did super-quick minimal makeup routine.
• Walked back to my office, stopping to drop off my gym bag in my car on the way.
• Total time: two hours and ten minutes.

REALLY?

If, like most people — including myself on most days — all I had was one hour free, I have to imagine that the only way I could get this done in time would be to do only about a 20 minute workout and try not to sweat too much so that I don’t have to shampoo my hair. I mean, I think I could feasibly do that. But what would be the point? For me to really work out, even if just a 30-minute run? Showering and shampooing are non-optional. There’s a lot of sweat.

So to anyone who is cramming a good midday workout into their day, first, let me salute you. Second, let me beg you for your secret. Please!

On another topic, please allow me to tell you how absolutely ice cold I was in the parking deck on my way to the gym. I was stopping by my car to grab my gym bag. I had parked in a pretty nice spot near the entrance to the deck, which is pretty large and has 4 levels of parking. It was fairly full, but I could see a few open spots here and there. Despite those open spots, it appeared someone really wanted mine.

A BMW convertible stopped right at the beginning of the row when I was still maybe 50 yards away. Clearly, the driver had seen me coming and assumed I was going home and wanted to take my space. I wasn’t leaving. There’s no real way to communicate this to someone in a car 50 yards away, though, is there? Plus, I really despise when people lurk in the parking lot waiting for me to leave — especially if they commence lurking and watching when I’m still so far from my car. The only thing worse is when someone (especially a male driver) slowly follows me to my car. *Shudder*

I really wasn’t invested in trying to communicate to this BMW driver that I wouldn’t be moving my car, so I just coolly went on my way, stopped by my car, grabbed my gym bag, and locked the door. As soon as the car dinged it’s little “doors locked” noise and I started walking away, man you should’ve seen that BWM do the angry, tire-screeching peel out! The dude was pissed. I couldn’t help myself; it gave me such a frisson of pleasure. Okay, fine, this is not that great of a story, but I smirked to myself the rest of the way to the gym. Better luck next time, sucker!