Going to the French Riviera....

....Gym. I know. The real Riviera would be so much nicer :) I decided that since it will be hot until, I don't know, forever, that I needed to look into somewhere cooler to work out. Plus a gym would give me the option (and hopefully nudge) to actually do some cross training. So I found a local gym here that is actually affordable. It doesn't have locker rooms or showers or group fitness....or a pool or beach volleyball or a bar...all things I loved about my last gym, but hey- it's like a third of the price so I'll take it! And it's close to work, and has 24 hour access. This may be especially good considering then I could work out late or early regardless of gym hours. Kinda scary, but they have cameras and apparently people are in there at all hours, so we'll see. But anyway I'm excited for air conditioning!

So yesterday was my first day there, and I just wanted to use the treadmill for my four mile run instead of dying of heat stroke. Seemed like a smart trade. But I haven't been on a treadmill in 2 years, so it was a little weird. I played around with the incline and the pace, which is why I love treadmills. You can create your own hills and push yourself to go faster all while distracting yourself from how long you've been on the thing. I tend to start at 5.5 mph and work up...I go up .2 mph every two minutes. My highest yesterday was 6.8 (8:49 min/mile pace). I would have liked to increase the speed more, but early on a did a half mile at 5.0 mph on a 4 degree incline, so Iwas dying. I don't know what the incline levels correspond to in real life, but if felt like a steady medium climb. I should have looked at the elevation covered in feet or meters or whatever it measures that in, but I forgot. All in all I did my four miles in 39:57. I was happy with that because I was playing with the speed so much and did the half mile at only 5 mph (12 min/mile pace) that I was surprised it didn't average to more than 10 minutes per mile. But it was surprisingly difficult and I was definitely sweating. This shocked me as I thought it would be a walk in the park after running outside lately! I'll be back there Monday and hopefully find out how much it actually costs to join. I hope it's not more than I've heard through the grapevine- it's a cute, quiet little gym and I think I would like to go there.

In other news, my race Sunday has been cancelled :( I was registered for the Crescent City Connection 4 mile Race, which goes over the bridge of the same name from the west bank to the east bank of the Mississippi in Gretna, Louisiana. Tropical Storm Gustav (let's hope he keeps that name) has threatened New Orleans enough that city officials decided it might not be smart to have one of the major bridges closed while people might be trying to evacuate. So let's hope this storm fizzles out....Louisiana needs a break from hurricanes for a few years at least!