Treadmill Woes

I generally try to not incorporate the word "hate" too much into everyday conversation, simply because I think that overuse diminishes meaning. For example, people tend to snap their heads around when they hear me drop an f-bomb at work rather than some of the residents who tend to incorporate f-this and f-that into every third sentence. But, I'm getting off topic here...

I hate my gym. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I belong to one of those big organizations with clubs all over the country. When I moved here, I signed up for another 3-year contract as I couldn't beat their renewal price anywhere, and there was a club only 3 miles from my house. Last year, I was using it regularly, when the roof collapsed after a very nasty storm (fortunately it was overnight when no one was in it). Immediately afterward, they put up a sign announcing that they would be re-opening soon. Months went by, and as the weather got better, I started running outside, rather than working out at their other location conveniently located in the city's largest shopping mall.

Now the weather is bad, so I am stuck hitting the treadmill again. I pretty much dropped running almost entirely since my vacation, particularly with my crazy ICU schedule and then the holiday season. Things were fine when I went on Thursday for a quick run. However, when I got there today, there was absolutely no parking. It took me a good 20 minutes to find a spot that left me having to walk through the entire mall, with bargain shoppers everywhere.

Today was probably an exceptionally bad time, but I don't want to deal with all of this on a regular basis. I said something about it to one of the employees there, and she said that she thought they were letting us go to one of the smaller, private clubs in my neighborhood. The "re-opening soon" sign at the old club has been taken down, and apparently they now don't plan on renovating it. Unfortunately, I'm paid through 2009, and I can't cancel the membership since there's technically a location within 30 minutes of my house. Hopefully, this independent club thing will work out, otherwise I suppose I will just be stuck with dealing with mall parking and gaggles of shoppers.