Back to the gym

Today is a rest day in the context of running, but I'm allowed to do some cross-training. And it coincides with the re-opening of the gym to which I belong. Nice to be able to get back, but there are some things that make absolutely NO sense. (I'm giving the gym the benefit of the doubt, that it is doing everything in total compliance with the government directives they've been given.)

Interesting to me that typically being in indoor public spaces still requires mask wearing, save for in the gym. It's encouraged, but not required. Almost none of the members (myself included) were wearing masks.

"Social distancing" typically means 6 feet minimum distance between people -- hence all these markers on the floor. Except, of course, inside the locker room. Our locker room has "bays" of approximately 60 lockers in 2 rows. Alternate lockers on the top row are available, and then the intermediate alternate lockers on the bottom row are available. So, in other words, we can still have one locker in each "column" of lockers, with men effectively standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Really? Shouldn't it really be every 4th or 5th locker available for one row (say the top row), and NONE available for the other row?

One of the included items for our fee is towels -- there's usually an abundance of them. Now, there are none in sight. After taking the extra beat to notice the sign in the shelf area, it's clear that those are held at the front desk only for disbursement. When asked why we need to come up front, the staffer (dutifully wearing both a mask and gloves) explained that CDC regulations in Phase 2 require that they be handed out by someone wearing gloves. Idiocy, IMO. We only bother taking the towels when we're going to use them; it's not like anyone goes and rubs their face on them and places them back amidst the unused towels -- give me a break. Phase 3 we'll be trusted once again to take towels for ourselves again. Sigh.

As I understand it, the coronavirus in the air or on surfaces dies relatively quickly in heat and humidity. Ironically enough, the steam room (the hottest and most humid part of our gym) is currently closed. Not that it is limited to, say, 6 people maximum at any one time, but off limits entirely. Why? Shouldn't that be the safest location in the gym, even without masks?

Then there's the exercise floor upstairs. It looks mostly the same at first blush, save for a few markers on the floor. All of the equipment is still there - none taken out. Take a bit more time, and you can see a lot more wipes and paper towels with spray sanitizer. Then looking at the arrangement of the equipment, you can see that certain pieces are "removed" from rotation by a simple sign placed on the display screen. But, while the treadmills and ellipticals have every other unit available for use, the stair climbers only have ¼ of them available, despite all of these pieces being equally spaced. Not only that, but it's straight columns of equipment available, rather than staggering the pieces in each row to further maximize the distance between rows.

I didn't look at the weights section, since I rarely bother with them. Likely not much different than normal.

For now, I'll keep my membership. We'll see how things evolve over time. Especially as it gets back to normal numbers of people coming in.