The Gym (Fat)

So I recently joined the local gym. I honestly don’t feel horribly great about the facility, but I live in a small town so it was this gym or no gym. The $10 a month fee isn’t bad and the equipment is passible. It meets my current gym needs. While I can deal with the small town and low quality facility, I am not super enthused about my fellow gym members.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind most of the people there, but last night I had an experience I just can’t keep to myself. A couple of young fellows were circling through the weights when I arrived. They have left teenage-hood physically, but have obviously not figured out how to act accordingly. They were your typical come to the gym to “see and be seen” type of guys. They clearly spend a sizable amount of time with the weights. Now I normally would have just ignored them, but I was having tough run and I needed some entertainment, so I started watching what they were doing. They were making fun of everyone in the gym. I feel like this is just poor gym etiquette. I mean honestly, we’re all in the gym trying to improve our current physical appearance and/or health. It’s not like we’re couch potatoes. I just feel it’s really bad taste to make fun of people who are honestly trying to have a good workout. While I thought their methods were rude I wasn’t totally angry until they singled in on me. As they walked by my machine they made several ridiculous comments about runners and how they don’t really work out. They then continued to loudly joke about how they were going to go for a run now. They both stepped on to machines not far from me.

I should point out at this juncture that I have just recently returned to the gym. I’ve had a couple of lazy months and am out of shape. I am also trying to train for a 5K in a couple of weeks so I’m really trying to increase speed and distance. At this point I had his about a mile and was panting pretty heavily (this may also have been due to the fact that I had eaten a rather large dinner and hadn’t allowed enough time for digestion.) At this point our two guys started mock panting very loudly and obnoxiously. I was planning to run two miles, but I felt like I might have to bust out Weird Al's "I'm fat", so I left when I hit 1.5 to save everyone from having to experience me singing, "Just watch your mouth, or I'll sit on you." Perhaps we should pass a law banning immature people from joining gyms...