Missing the Sunshine

For those of you who have been following me on Facebook, you know that the promise and hope that my stress fracture was healed was false. Stress fractures normally take 6-8 weeks to heal. This Thursday marks week 26 for me. Other than the obvious, which is that I miss running, I also really miss my daily dose of sunshine. For about the past nine years, I've exercised about an hour a day outside. Sure, there have been some injuries here and there which kept me in the gym, but overall, I've been able to run outside the vast majority of the time. 

 The past six months, I've been exercising indoors every day, since even speed walking is too much for my fractured metatarsal. I can't say how much I have been missing the sunshine. Today was the worst, I think. I had to leave for campus early this morning, so in my usual tradition for when this happens, I got up at 5am, threw on my workout clothes, grabbed my gym bag, and hit the road. I was on campus by 7am. The pool is closed for the annual spring cleaning and maintenance, so I headed over to the campus fitness center and gymnasium. I found the doors locked. I looked in the windows and saw that all of the exercise equipment for the fitness center had been removed and someone was mopping the floors. The sign on the door stated that the fitness center was closed May 20-27 for its annual spring cleaning. Big sigh. So, I had two problems: (1) I was in my workout clothes and needed a shower so that I could be presentable for my meetings today and (2) How was I going to get in a workout since I cannot run or walk and the pool and fitness center are closed? I wouldn't get home from community band rehearsal tonight until after 10pm, so my "home gym" was not an option either. What to do...what to do?

 I got someone to let me into the building. I placed my gym bag and work clothes in the faculty/staff locker room and then headed to the vast and empty college gymnasium. I found a mat and dragged it into a corner. I also spotted a brick of sorts - made out of concrete that crumbled a little bit every time I lifted it. I had a 50 min. workout in this gym, facing the wall, lying on my back, lifting the concrete brick over my head and lifting my legs until they touched. I also did crunches and squats, "bridge" positions, planks, push-ups, and anything else that would not place too much pressure on my fractured foot. To make matters worse the lights in the gym are motion sensitive, so after a while most of the lights turned out and I was in very dim lighting, getting in my daily workout. This is the pits, I thought to myself.  

 Boy, did I miss the sunshine today. The bad news is that I will probably repeat this routine on Thursday when I have to arrive on campus early for meetings that day, too. 

 What to do...what to do? Pool-no pool; fitness center-no fitness center; running-no running; sunshine-no sunshine. Carry on. What else can one do?

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