My cardio workouts have been going very well and I enjoy doing them for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that I’ve been able to read through a bunch of my books that were piling up. My weight lifting routine, though, has been spotty at best. I want to take the next few days and – while I’m driving all over the state tomorrow and Sunday – I want to try to remember my old weight lifting workout.

Also, when I start back up at the gym on Monday morning, I want to ramp up my cardio workouts. I’ve been doing about the same incline and speed on the treadmill for the last few weeks and now I want to change that up a bit. Either slow it down and walk for a longer time or speed it up and decrease the overall time on the treadmill.

In any event, I’ve been very happy going back to the gym again and I’m glad that I signed up for the one that is located right down the street from where I live. It’s great having a place to workout so close to home!

I’m sorry.

I’m apologizing because I was that guy at the gym tonight. Yes, I was the guy on the treadmill on his cell phone holding a conversation that had nothing to do with working out. As many of you know, I serve on the Board of Trustees for a national foundation. At some point around 7pm tonight, I got on a phone call with the Executive Director of our foundation. Since my back was hurting me this morning when I woke up, I had to go to the gym after work – and since I had that phone call scheduled, that meant that I couldn’t go to the gym until after the call.

But do you ever get on those calls where you just have to stay on the line because the discussion is so good that you need to explore it a little bit further? Well, our Executive Director and I had what I thought was an excellent conversation tonight about a variety of issues (some of which were eye-opening to me). But as the call went on I began to worry about getting my workout in. So I drove to the gym and sat in my car for another hour or so on the phone (one of my roommates actually arrived at the gym after me and left before me while I was taking the call).

Then when it got to be 9pm, I knew I had to get a workout in before I was too tired to do it. So I was that guy on the treadmill on his cell phone, but it was for a good reason. And now I will think twice about those other people who are on their cell phones. On the other hand, though, I was on an important phone call and I kept my voice down. Most of those other people get on their phones and start to talk way too loud and in an obnoxious tone!

By the way, tonight marks 18 days in a row that I’ve been to the gym. Pretty good for a guy who isn’t even on a diet and is just working out for the fun of it.

First things first – I didn’t read Covey’s related book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People so I cannot really offer much in the way of comparing one book to the other. I have the 7 Habits audio book, but I haven’t had the chance to sit down and listen to it yet.

The first book aside, though, I definitely recommend The 8th Habit for the young professional who may have little prior leadership experience and is trying to find a way to break through to the next level in his or her career. For those who are already overflowing with leadership experience, this book might be a nice refresher course and serve to remind you of some aspects of success that you might have overlooked. In either event, using the link above you can purchase this book for only a few bucks so if you’re interested, it’s definitely worth the purchase.

Covey breaks this book into a variety of sections and makes excellent use of charts and graphs throughout. He also intersperses the text with quotes from famous leaders, which I found very enjoyable (I’ll be lifting some of those quotes for the random quote generator located on the right hand side of this page). Chapters include topics like finding your voice, empowering those around you (which is essentially the “core” of the 8th Habit), and aligning basic strategies. One theme that is consistently brought up in the book is the idea that we – as a society – are leaving the industrial age and entering an information age.

Or, as Covey calls it, the Age of Wisdom. This is an interesting and yet obvious insight to those in the working world. The Age of Wisdom presents a fundamental change to employers and employees as the contributions of the masses will no longer be blood, sweat, and tears, but instead information. In other words, where the economy once thrived off of the backs of industrial age workers, the new economy is being built off of the minds of wisdom age workers. Interesting insight once you start to study the job market and notice how many highly physical jobs are being taken over by automated processes.

And the introduction of automated processes isn’t a bad thing at all! In fact, it’s great because it will force many people to begin studying and researching new ways to contribute to their employer. Sure, it won’t happen on a mass scale, but I agree with Covey that one day we’ll look around and find ourselves immersed in an information age society. Could be faster than you think…

For those of you who are into these types of books, I suggest picking up (an inexpensive copy of) this book and giving it a read. You’ll find it to be a fast read with nice messages that you can take away throughout. Enjoy!

Anyway, the woman two treadmills down from me was the epitome of a clod hopper! Every step she took on the machine you would have thought that she was going to go through the floor. I’ll never understand why some people don’t pick up their feet when they get on the treadmills, but you know what? This woman was going at a pretty good pace and she was burning calories like it was her job. Impressive…

But still funny!

The other funny observation that I had at the gym today was the guy on the treadmill next to me. For those of you that go on these treadmills you know that you can increase the incline on the machine to simulate the going up hill effect. It’s actually a great way to burn more calories over the course of a week. Anyway, this guy get on the treadmill next to me and sets the incline at such a ridiculous level that he’s practically falling off of the machine! It was pretty funny – he couldn’t even swing his arms as he was walking because he had to hold on to the top of the machine to stay on it.

Clod hoppers and mountain climbers…hilarious!

Everyone knows that you’re supposed to walk some 10,000 steps in a day. For those of us who have jobs that require us to sit in one spot in front of a computer all day, that number can be hard to reach. Well, last week I took some 75,550 steps (according to my pedometer). I’ve been recording my steps for the last three or four years (can’t remember exactly), but the most that I’ve ever had in a week before is something like 72,000+ and that generally happens when I go to Nashville and walk around the city. So you can see, this is pretty good progress.

Again, even though I don’t want to make a regular routine out of this, I’m looking forward to getting up early tomorrow to get my workout in before I go to work. Not only are there not that many people at the gym, but I get to do a lot of reading while I’m on the treadmill (look for some more book reviews coming soon). Stay tuned for the latest and the greatest gym stories as they occur…

By the way, speaking of landmark achievements – Mother’s Day marked 14 days in a row that my Mom has gone without smoking. Unbelievable! My brothers and I are so incredibly proud of her. The last time that she didn’t smoke for 14 straight days was before she started smoking as a young girl. Amazing achievement, Mom! Good work!

Since I joined the gym I’ve worked out over a dozen times, which isn’t so bad when you consider that most days I am out of the house from 7:30am until about 6:30pm and that I have a two hour daily commute which is completely exhausting. In fact, the two hours that I spend in the car are the two hours that most other gym-goers would spend working out, but I don’t want to start a digression about my commute.

In my trips to the gym, I’ve primarily focused on aerobic exercises – riding the bike and walking on the treadmill. I’ve only just begun to do some light weightlifting and not the type of weightlifting that I used to do in high school where I was trying to gain mass and strength. Nope. The weightlifting that I am going to focus on this time around will solely focus on maintaining a certain level of strength and wellness.

Unfortunately for most of the readers of this blog, I don’t have many funny gym stories just yet. The gym I am going to is not staffed at all times so there are occasions when I get to the building and the lights are off and no one is there except for me. I guess that’s a type of oddity, but I assume that a bunch of other gym-goers at this location have experienced the same thing.

In terms of overall health, I feel good, but I wouldn’t say that I feel completely different from before I began working out again in March. That’s probably because I’ve been attending the gym sporadically and not on a set workout regime. Once I change my workout habits to be on more of a schedule, I think that I’ll feel a physical change. I have lost a few pounds since I started working out, but nothing major to brag about.

As I spend more time at the gym, though, I’m sure I’ll eventually have stories and craziness to tell you about – so stay tuned!

I’m going to try to find more hours in my day by waking up earlier each day. On a typical day, I generally get up between 6:30am and 7:00am. I’m going to try to move that back an hour and get my exercising in during the morning hours (I already know that it’s not going to be a long term success because I don’t like working out in the morning, but it might be good for now). So we’ll see how that goes…

The thing that really seems to sap the time from my day is this ridiculous commute to and from Trenton everyday. An hour there and an hour back. Sometimes I make it back from Trenton in 45 minutes because there isn’t so much traffic, but most mornings I wind up sitting in the car for more than an hour, so it all averages out. I like my job and all, but if a similar opportunity came up that cut my commute in half (or less), I’d probably take the offer.

Look, I’m an overachiever and I’m aware of that fact. Yes, I should calm down and not do so much extra with my non-day job hours, but I have to keep myself busy. I hate sitting around too much and I hate wasted time. Hell, when I clear out my DVR on the weekends I do it while I’m going to work on the laptop with the TV playing in the background! When I go to the gym I make it a point to read while I’m on the treadmill so I get two birds down with one stone!

I think part of the problem is the increase in non-day job business that I have going right now. Once some of my side projects are completed I should have some additional hours in the day. Until then, I propose that we extend each day to 30 hours long. Agreed?

Actually, given the smaller size of the location where I joined it would be surprising if they could fit a locker room or an office in the building! The gym has got to be less than 1,000 square feet in total space, but the truth is that it carries itself very well. There are separate male and female bathrooms and a desk that serves as the “office.” Behind the desk is a set of cubby holes that serve as your personal locker, too. It’s really a genius setup for a smaller scale gym.

The other thing that makes this gym unique is that, due to its small setup, it really is not made to handle a high number of members working out at the same time. In fact, since I joined last Saturday I’ve been at the gym three times. The first two times I attended were at night on Saturday and at night on Sunday and when my roommate and I showed up there was no one there. The lights were actually off when we arrived (they automatically turn on via motion sensors when you walk in the door).

The third night I attended the gym there was a classic clod hopper on the treadmill next to me. And with that, the next chapter of gym stories on this blog seems to have begun!

Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for me, I have not had any ridiculous experiences at Work Out World (WOW) in Ocean Township. I’m sort of sickened that I’m going to another gym in Ocean Township since I do everything I can to NOT contribute to the town’s economy (I’ll always be bitter from how they treated my friends and I while we were college students – police brutality and destroying civil liberties definitely leaves a mark on you). The new gym is nice and I’m amazed at how packed it is at 6:30am in the morning.

One of the complaints that I read about WOW before signing up was that there are too many members and that there are times when the lines for equipment are half an hour long. I thought that I would experience this problem yesterday morning when I pulled up to the gym early in the morning and I saw a packed parking lot, but I didn’t have a problem getting on a treadmill at all. The early morning workouts have been nice so far, but I think I’m going to change up my training schedule each week or every other week so I’m not always working out first thing in the morning or later in the evening. I guess it depends on my schedule at work.

One weird coincidence popped up this morning, though. Yesterday I thought I saw some kid (I say “kid” but he’s got to be my age) who used to hang around one of my ex-fling’s houses. He looked different (older), but after Day Two at the gym I’m pretty confident that it’s him. So that was sort of weird.

Well, being a schmuck, I had to buy the $25 pedometer as opposed to the $10 one. I don’t really know what the difference is between the two, but that didn’t matter at the time. So I started wearing the pedometer and it was cool to see how many steps you take in a day or how many steps you take when you’re just walking around the mall (by the way – you take a LOT of steps walking around the mall!). I also wore it to the gym so I could see how many steps I took during a typical session on the treadmill. All of this was very interesting.

But the stupid pedometer had a habit of flopping open all the time so I was constantly locking it back into place. That wasn’t really annoying, but it was aggravating to have to do that all of the time. Also, it was a pain in the ass to always have to remember to put the thing on when I was just walking around my apartment or lounging.

Anyway, I got out of my car in Newark today and as I was walking towards the building I was going to, I felt down to the pedometer and the fucking thing wasn’t there! The shell of it was there (that is, the piece that locks it into place), but the actual pedometer was gone. I figured that it was in my car since it has a habit of popping off in the car. Nope.

I lost the damn thing. That’s $25 that I pretty much just threw into the street somewhere. Fucking fantastic. The moral of the story here, kiddies, is to not buy expensive trinkets if they are too small to keep an eye on and especially if you’re going to attach them in a manner that allows them to easily be lost.

Stupid pedometer…