“I always hear about the free weeks or the cheap monthly rates.” “Yeah, but if you look at the actual plans, over the course of a year, it’s like $500.[1,2]” It’d be one thing if I needed the external motivation, liked networking, did a wide range of workouts on many different types of ergometers, or wanted to learn from a personal trainer. All I wanna do is row! It’s been a month. I’m growing ever weaker…

I brought over a carload of stuff from storage. I was exhausted.

It might have been the heat, speed, or lunch, but I noticed a pain in my stomach that was more than just a little worrisome for me. By the time I brought everything into my apartment-mansion and did the celebratory locking of the apartment door, I did the laundry and nearly slept through the wash cycle.

That’s much less energy than I used to have.

Between editing for seven hours straight on Friday and a full day of working on Keyboard Kommander on Saturday, I guess my energy levels weren’t at my usual level, and I haven’t really put on any weight outside of this weight range lately, but I am still starting to really feel the effects of not exercising enough.

I’m more stressed out overall and more tired.

I was able to put away everything, so it doesn’t even look like I added a carload’s worth of stuff to the apartment-mansion today, but it took longer and I felt more tired than even compared to when I was moving in last month. So this is becoming more of a concern, so I’ll use this column to write about my plans:

• I’m starting a new gig soon. I’ll see if they have a gym with rowers. If so, I’ll have a nice stop-gap.
• I’ve already been asking around to see if anyone knows of cheap magnetic-resistance rowers or excellent-quality water rowers for sale. I have the money to afford either one, but I’ll be sure to budget my money so I can do so reasonably.
• The apartment complex has storage unit rentals, but these cost about the same as a gym membership!
• I could always do a one-month gym membership to see if I want to explore that option further…

If we think of a gym in terms of a utility, the yearly bill works out to about $1.37 per month, which is substantial and would pay for a nice rower in two years, but the gym also allows me the opportunity to try some of those perks, or meet new people. I enjoyed that when I rowed at the gym with this rower.

That gym was also a free perk at a gig I worked at the time.

Unless my work has a free gym or offers heavily-discounted deals on a gym membership, I will likely need to go the route of purchasing a new rower. I’ve used this one for years and I got it for free.

Maybe it’s upgrade time?