Exercise in futility

Frank and I joined a gym today. Yesterday, we drove around and visited several fitness facilities close to our house. It started to feel like a parallel-universe version of "House Hunters."

Number 1: 24 Hour Fitness--not even up for consideration. Too crowded and too full of younger people looking for a hook up.

Number 2: Local Parks and Rec center--This one is close to home, affordable, has an outdoor pool, and gives us access to all rec centers in the city, but the hours aren't very good and the room with the machines is small.

Number 3: This is a smallish fitness facility that is about 1.5 miles from our house, but in a different municipality, which means we would pay the out-of-town rate. The place is only four years old, but despite top-of-the line equipment, it always seems to be mostly empty. Oddly, it has a dramatic and sweeping great room lobby that deserves mention on its own merit. There is a pocket branch of the local library in this part of the center. No communal showers. Alas, no pool, no hot tub, and parking is on the next block. Plenty of classes, though. Did I mention granite counter tops, stainless steel accents throughout, and cherry wood cabinetry in the locker rooms? Definitely not our cheapest option.

Number 4: The nearby YMCA  is familiar and Frank gets a discount through work. Lots of classes, it has an indoor pool, plenty of regular folks, but it's also overrun with children, the showers are communal, and the parking lot can be tricky to enter and exit. Certified personal trainers are really inexpensive here, though, and intensive training program package deals are amazing.

Number 5: There's a swanky fitness club on the way home from my work and reasonably close to Frank's office. Lots of beautiful people and the most comprehensive yoga schedule we've ever seen. We're not yoga people, though. It has Reformer Pilates! It also has an outdoor pool (woot!), a juice bar, massage rooms and spa facilities. It's an absolutely gorgeous and serene(!) place, and it costs a fortune.

And the one we chose was...Number 3. It's really like a boutique facility and it's still within our budget. The fact that it has state-of-the art equipment and is usually mostly empty works in our (my) favor. The showers and locker rooms are spa-like. This particular municipality doesn't have much of a residential base, but has a ton of big-box stores and hotels in a single square mile. They have more tax revenue than they know what to do with, so they built--and subsidize--this beautiful facility. I wasn't lying about the granite and cherry, so this is still like House Hunters, even though it really had no bearing on our decision.

So, the next big decision is to actually, you know, go and work out. I friggin' loathe exercise with all the depth and breadth of my being. There's not enough state-of-the-art equipment on the planet to change how I feel about that.

Would it be wrong to work out w/chilled white wine spritzers in my water bottle? It's so refreshing and could make me feel better about exercise.