For just over 11 years, I was a member of Pivotal Fitness. I have described before how the act of joining this gym back when I first started teaching played an instrumental role in starting my transformation as a runner. Over those 11 years, my habits at the gym changed but I still made enough use of it to justify the fairly low monthly membership fee.

Over the years, I became increasingly disillusioned with the overall management and customer service, once to the point of temporarily switching my membership to a different gym but ultimately the low cost kept me at Pivotal, that plus the familiarity. Then came the pandemic and mandated closures of everything except essential businesses. Of course, that included the gym. For a few months I ran outside in beautiful weather and made use of the minimal equipment Ellis already had with workouts he scripted for Mom and me.

Eventually I started thinking about getting a treadmill for myself and perhaps giving up my gym membership. After the gym reopened I used it just for the stationary biek and occassionally the treadmill if the weather necessitated it.

Around this time Mom also mentioned their idea of building up their own home gym. I decided to surprise her and Ellis for their birthdays, both in October, a week apart, and bought them a Bosu, a balance ball, and some resistance bands. Of course, since we do not live in the same place, I had to buy some for myself. (I had already bit the bullet on the treadmill by this time.)

Next came the purchase of a stationary bike, a whole lot more equipment like adjustable dumbbells, plyo box, kettle bells, Bosu, balance ball, weighted jump rope, resistance bands, medicine ball, exercise mat as well as the cancellation of our gym memberships. (Ellis kept his.)

Now, none of this equipment will do me any good if I never use it. At first, I made a lot of use out of several pieces, notably the treadmill, stationary bike, medicine ball, and adjustable dumbbells. Then life happened, the intense school year and then Covid.

After getting back from Hawaii, I noticed how uncomfortable I felt. I had gained a handful of pound but lost significantly more strength. Throughout the month of April, I kept thinking about getting back to strength training but running out of time to plan or execute anything due to hurriedly attempting to finish my grad work.

That ended April 26th when I presented my action research project and no longer needed to spend time on that work. I knew I needed a plan so I dove into searching. In one morning before school, I found something and committed. That commitment meant purchasing the next items on my list, a power rack, barbell, and plates. Everything save the barbell and a couple plates have arrived. Timothy and I worked together to assemble the power rack.

Now comes the commitment. I have successfully made running an essential part of my day. Over the course of the final month of school and the summer, I commit now to the hard work of building the strength training habit so that it becomes as natural a part of my daily habits as running. Stay tuned for more.