24hour fitness

Brandon and I have been thinking about joining a gym since we moved here. It's not that it is unsafe to run around our neighborhood, but there are no sidewalks and the park is a ways away. (In other words, we would have to drive to run in the park.) We both feel like we need exercise, but for me it is dark when I get home and I don't like to go real early in the morning. Plus, I love aerobics classes! I laugh at myself so much (and the instructors: how do they keep that smile on their faces?!), but I love learning the routines and I always get a great workout.

Here in the St. Louis Metro area, there are centers for the physical fitness called 24hour Fitness. As you may have guessed, these centers are open twenty-four hours a day. When my husband first sighted one such location, he told me we should definitely join "because then we could exercise at any time, even three in the morning!"

I must say that at first I was not convinced that these were anything spectacular. I am not one to exercise at three in the morning and the one we had first laid eyes on was in a shady part of town and attached to a mall.

Aside: I never understood why they would put a gym inside a shopping mall. I mean, who wants to be gawked at sweating and huffing by calm and cool shoppers like a freakish window display?!

Anyway, I put this particular gym in the back of my mind and over the past six months, Brandon has often brought it up informing me that there are many locations all over St. Louis and that, once again, we could exercise at any time of the day. I know this one detail is important to him because he is still a student and in the middle of studying and writing papers, he likes to take a break by exercising and not having access to a school gym has been a sad experience for him.

Well, on the day we were discussing our furniture shopping at the local Smoothie King, we happened upon a drawing for a six month free pass to 24hour Fitness. I thought, it couldn't hurt to try for it and if we get picked, we will have a free gym membership. Plus, I had spotted one on my way home from work that would be perfect to relieve end of day stress!

So, we entered our names in the drawing.

About a week later, we both got calls saying that we had won week long memberships to the gym. Okay, it's not six months, but we'll take it. Tonight we have appointments to tour the gym like VIPs and ask all our questions about membership and such. They have swimming pools, saunas, steam rooms, weight rooms, and my favorite: group exercise classes on land and in the pool! I can't wait to get out the old lycra pants and exercise clothes . . . :)