The Gym

I love the gym and I hate the gym.
I love how I feel after I work out.
I hate how I feel when my alarm clock goes off every morning at 5:30.
I love to see my weights increase, my reps increase, my cardio increase.
I hate to see the muscle heads who are ten times my size.  Do they live in the gym?  Steroids?
I don't want to be a meat head, but I do fantasize about having arms like Patrick Willis.  Pretty sure I never will.
I'd love to be able to run like the wind forever, or as Jason Bourne says "at this altitude I can run flat out for 20 minutes before my hands start shaking."  I'd love to know how that feels.  Pretty sure I never will.

Ultimately, the gym is a distraction for me.
It is two hours every morning that I don't think about how far away from my family I am right now.
It is two hours in my day where I don't deal with the pressures of work.
It is two hours where I focus on staying healthy, mentally and physically.

So I put in my headphones, cue up the music, discover new bands that my kids keep telling me about, and get down to working out.  I try not to let the people around me become distractions and I tell myself with every rep or every mile "I love the gym."

Maybe one day I'll actually mean it.