A letter to people who share my working out spaces

Dear guy with the Hawaiian shorts,
Please quit crouching on the wall, underwater, watching me coming, and then pushing off when I'm in mid-flip. You know I'm going to pass you anyway, can't you wait 2 more seconds?

Dear guy with a pot belly that looks like you swallowed a watermellon,
When you're swimming the old-guy-froggy-breast-stroke and staring at me the whole length of the pool, I can see you. Don't you know it's rude to stare?

Dear guy who hangs onto the lane line mid-pool to chat to his buddy in the next lane,
Your fat ass makes your butt and whole lower body buoyant... which makes your feet float up behind you, which makes you block the whole lane, which makes me have to swim under you, which makes me mad. Do like the old ladies do and chat on the wall.

Dear sidestroke speedo guy,
Oh, if you knew what that scissor kick looked like from behind you wouldn't do that to me!

Dear lady who crosses 5 lanes mid-pool to get to the ladder,
Please, please look both ways before you cross a lane. "I didn't know you were coming" is a poor excuse. Do you see a lot of people change course in a lap lane?

Dear guy who hangs out spread eagle on the T on the wall,
Get the hell out of the way! One of these days I'm going to dolphin kick you where the sun don't shine and make like it was an accident.

Dear mullet guy with prison tattoos,
Please stop racing me. A) It's rude and annoying. B) You need some serious swim lessons, because the pool gets a foot shallower after you've been in it from all the splashing you do, and I'm sick of choking on your waves. C) It doesn't make you any more macho to get to the wall first after 25 yards if you have to chill there on the wall catching your breath while I swim 75 more.

Dear anorexic lady,
Eat something, please! You're scaring me.

Dear lady who brings a pillow to the gym with her to use on her recumbent bike,
Stop asking me how many calories I burned today. I don't know, but I find it a really rude question anyway. I'm not going to tell you when my last bowel movement was either.

Dear lifeguard,
Please, please, oh please don't move the backstroke flags WHILE I'm swimming the last 5m of back stroke. Do you know how disorientating that is? Do you know how much it hurts when you smack the wall with your arm or head?

Dear maintenance guy,
Can you please wait till I'm OFF the indoor trainer before coming around to mop up the puddle of sweat under me?

Dear lady who wears makeup to the gym,
Don't stand in the middle of the double doors, arms outspread holding each door open oblivious to the people trying to get by, and then give a dirty look to the people who push you out of the way. It kind of gives me the urge to smack you with a resistance band.

Dear sweaty old man,
Use a towel! No one wants to come up to a machine with your sweaty old man juice still dribbling down the seat.

Dear everyone,
When doing a lat pull the bar comes down IN FRONT OF your head. Also, do not bounce while stretching! It's painful to LOOK at you all!

Dear sweaty old men numbers 2 and 3,
Please do not lean on my bike trainer while chatting... especially not when I'm ON it.

Dear old ladies in the locker room,
I can shave any place I feel like!

Dear fat old lady who gets distracted when she's getting dressed and talking at the same time and spends half an hour gesticulating naked,
Let's stay on task, please.


Ok, I feel a bit better now.

How Embarrassing!

Here's a copy of an email I sent out to two of my good friends in California after THE MOST MORTIFYING MOMENT EVER! Do you think I should write in to YM magazine? Anyway, some background information that you might want to know: Kat and Lorraine work in the gym where I worked when I was in California. Kat is a powerlifter and Lorraine is an ultraendurance (like 50-100 miles) runner.

Kat, do you remember that time that you told me that you'd never thrown up from working out and it seemed like fun...? Well it's not. I speak from experience! Today I decided to run 10k at the gym (the streets here aren't very good for running). So I ran and ran and ran for an hour. Fine, normal right? I've done it a million times. When I finished I was feeling a little icky. I figured I would walk a bit and be fine. But it got worse. So I stood for a second. It wasn't looking good. So I tried to make a run for the bathroom, but I puked. Right there in the middle of the exercise floor. I tried to get it in my towel... but then I puked again. And again. And finally I made it to the bathroom and puked again. They pulled one of the female aerobics teachers out of a class to go into the bathroom and make sure I was fine and everyone was asking me if I was dizzy. HOW EMBARRASSING! I don't know how I'm ever going to be able to show my face there again! I should have gone running in the street. The street is a perfect place to puke. Everybody does it. But not so much on the exercise floor...