A visit to the gym + Sunday, January 4th @ 11:00 am = a bad idea

My friend Heather is enjoying this brand new January more than those of past years. This year she is working out in her freshly painted home gym.

I, on the other hand, spent this morning (prime New Year's Resolution time) running at Bally's. As usual, I'd forgotten how last January looked.

Heather has always dreaded this time of year, dubbing it amateur hour at the gym. Suddenly, the parking lot is packed, much of the equipment is occupied, and the regular gym-goer's routine is seriously hampered by the new influx in holiday-stuffed-resolution-makers. It takes about six weeks or so, but without fail, all becomes normal again. Today the gym was right on schedule.

Here are a few choice encounters:

Full-hair-and-makeup-girl, fully stocked with waters and protein drinks, wanders off the elliptical every 5 minutes for another magazine

Several male 40-somethings who surely cleared out the entire tightest-smallest-shortest-under-armor-spandex-we-could-find section at Sports Authority

a few cell-phone-talkers

one iPhone-toucher

Around mile 3 on the treadmill, a large cloud of cologne was shared with me by an Abercrombie-pantsed-Steve Madden-loafer-wearing boy, as he actually clipped on the emergency stop cord to his striped henley, and walked for about 9 minutes

At mile 4 my nostrils were assaulted by the worst B.O. I've smelled in recent memory by a rather large bandanna-clad-man who took over the treadmill for cologne-boy. I switched treadmills once I started to gag.

This is all within 4 miles, people.

I can hear Heather giggling from her computer right now. Oh yes, it's January at the gym. Only 5 weeks left to go...