Ow.

I went back to the gym on Monday. I’ve been away from the gym for several months, although I can’t say that I haven’t been working out. Anyone who processes trees into firewood knows that it’s a full-body workout. After all, he who heats his house with wood is warmed twice, right? Once when you cut it and once when you burn it?

Bollocks.

You get heated far more than twice. Once when you fell the tree. Once when you cut it into rounds. Once when you transport those rounds to the splitting/stacking area. Once when you split and stack it. And then finally when you burn it. I actually lost two inches off of my waist this summer with the calories that I burned turning trees into firewood. I had to buy a new chainsaw at one point, as the one I was working with was about twenty years old. Twenty years of cutting firewood, and we burn about six to eight cords of wood every winter. For those who don’t know, a cord is a unit of measurement four feet wide, four feet tall and eight feet long. 128 cubic feet of wood. Times eight. Needless to say, I wasn’t in the gym over the summer as I was just worn out from the physical work I was putting in. Add in redoing a fence line and all the other work that a place in the woods needs, and I was fit.

But those muscles aren’t the same as what you use in the gym. And it had been about a month since I had really done any hard physical labor, so back to the gym I go. And I know that there’s no way that I can do what I used to do when I was hitting the gym regularly, so I change my workout accordingly. But still, holy crap. My shoulders were locked up so hard yesterday that I had a screaming headache from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed. And today, my triceps feel like someone melted them down with acid and squirted the melted goo back into my arms. Can’t wait to see how I feel tomorrow.

Anyways, all of that was laid out just to tell you that I finally got a chance to see a gym tottie in the wild.

I walk in to the gym and do a little recon to see what machines are open and try to plan out my workout so that I’m not bumping in to other people. And I see a woman dressed in shorts that can only be described as “revealing”. Actually, revealing doesn’t cover it. It was a gossamer-thin bit of fabric that left nothing to the imagination. Combined with a sports bra that also left nothing to the imagination, but somehow was loose enough that when she bent over (which she did frequently) you could easily see everything that was supposed to be covered.

I was actively looking for a camera. This had to be a set-up. Not only was she wearing almost nothing, but the exercises she was doing were designed to put every one of her assets on display.

When she moved to a machine close to me, I got my gear and moved to a different part of the gym. At one point I was doing dumbell presses, where the bench was in front of a full wall mirror. When I was pausing in-between sets I took a look in the mirror at all the guys in the gym. And damn near all of them were checking out the tottie, either openly or on the sly.

I’d say she got the attention she wanted.

I think what really got me upset is that as she was leaving, she put on a pair of grey sweatpants. She could have worked out in those just fine, and been decent all the while. But I guess that’s not really why she was there, was it?

Anyways, I hurt, I saw a gym tottie in the wild, and I’ve spent all of today moving snow and dealing with schoolwork. Which didn’t help with the sore muscles, but that’s life in the woods.