Welcome to Running: A FEVER. This is Michael Davis, and my goal is to live a long, healthy, happy life right up to the very end. And I’ll do it by loving my life enough to make it last as long as possible.

And right now, I’m on my way to the gym. I’m on my way to the gym for the first time in a long time. I can’t even remember the last time I went to the gym. However, I have been paying them every month for that whole time. I guess I just put that out of my mind. I had a debit card that had worn out, and I was getting rejections at the stores. I had to get it replaced and instead of just changing the code, they changed the whole number, so everywhere I had that number saved I had to go resave it. And one of the places I had to change it was the athletic club where I work out. I waited until a payment was rejected and then changed it. But the payment was key because when I saw it, I was like, shouldn’t I be using this if I’m paying so much for it? So that spurred me to go back to the gym.

Fashion Department. I’m wearing my old green hoodie, a new—for—the—first—time pair of sweat pants, and my weightlifting shoes, which I haven’t worn in forever. I don’t think I actually need weightlifting shoes, but I’ve got ’em because I used to buy all these shoes for different things, and I still have these. They are practically new. What else am I going to use them for? So I’m wearing them.

I didn’t bring my logbook, which I was planning to do. I looked at the logbook, and there were many things I couldn’t understand. It was shorthand that I was using years ago, and I couldn’t quite figure it out. But I think once I start using it again, I’ll understand. So I’m going to be winging it, and I’ll probably only work out for half an hour, and I’ll come back for the end of the episode and tell you how it went. I feel pretty good. I’m excited about doing this. We’ll see how it goes. I’m planning to do some arm work and possibly some chest work. My concern is my back. I don’t want to hurt my back.

As you know, I have a back problem now. And until I get surgery or something like that, I will probably not be able to do certain kinds of lifting: heavy lifting, big deadlifts, and things like that. So I’m just about there. It’s a Sunday morning, and I had noticed that…I usually go to church on Sunday morning and drive right past this gym, and I always notice that there are not many people in the parking lot on Sunday, so that’s a good time to come. So I went to church last night instead of today. I’m here, and there is practically no one here. There are probably no more than 10 cars in the parking lot.

So it will be interesting to see what I can do. I’m going to start slow. Very light weights, low reps. Not doing anything that might sprain anything or in any way hurt me. I’m going to warm up, take a couple of laps around the track. Hopefully, that will keep me from getting hurt today. That’s a significant risk when I’ve been away for so long. I’m going to make sure that I’m safe and I don’t get hurt and don’t do something that’s going to take me out of action for a while. I have plenty of experience with that, as you know if you are an avid Running: A FEVER listener.

It’s Halloween week, so it’s October and 7 o’clock in the morning. It’s almost completely dark. Before I got here, I could see some light and some clouds. Now, there’s so much light I can’t see anything. My clock says 8 o’clock, so I’m going to go ahead and see if I can get in there. I will talk to you when I get out.

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I just got out of my first gym visit in a long time. It’s still dark. I still have to have my headlights on. It wasn’t that bad. I’ve got this big toe on my right foot that troubles me. So as soon as I put on the shoes this morning, I felt that. That hampered my walking around. These are pretty stiff shoes; they are made for weightlifting. They are made to keep you stable while carrying much more weight than you usually do. I did a couple of laps around the track. It’s a tenth of a mile track, and I did two laps, so I did two tenths of a mile to warm up a little bit. It didn’t get me that warm because I wasn’t going that fast or that far. I probably need to do a couple more laps or go faster to warm up. Note for the future.

I did like the fact that it was almost deserted. For the first few minutes, two guys were in the weight area. A third guy showed up during my last exercise. So it’s pretty good. I’m probably going to try to come here every morning that I don’t go to church. It’s too late to get to church if I do it on the same day. I’m going to be coming back here on Sunday whenever I can. The exercises that I did included some side lifts for the deltoids. I did some pull-downs, some lat pull-downs. I used a machine for your quads, lifting using your lower legs against a plate on a roller connected to weights. It’s not a curl, it goes the other way. And I did some calf lifts, not standing up, but sitting down. I can do more weight sitting down, but I just wanted to do what I could to save my back today.

Since I didn’t have my logbook, it was a pretty random selection of exercises. I’ve got a feeling I will be sore tomorrow, maybe later today. I didn’t push it that hard at all. I felt it on the side lifts, the deltoid lifts. I was doing that with 20-pound weights, which I think I might have been doing before. But my deltoids are pretty strong. I just started with whatever was on the machine for the calf lifts. I didn’t take any notes this time or log anything. Hopefully, next time I’ll remember my gloves and my logbook. It feels good to be back there. My card let me in. They recognize me, they realize that I’ve been paying that fee every month. So overall, it was a pretty good trip and a good way to start my Sunday off. And I hope you enjoyed that little recap and precap, and if you’ve got the fever, keep it burning, and if you don’t, catch the fever, and I will talk to you next time on Running: A FEVER.