Chapter Two: It Looks As Though Tomorrow I’ll Do Pretty Much The Same

Charles Dickens opens A Tale of Two Cities with one of the most quoted lines in literary history: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Dickens uses this line as a way to immediately inform the reader that during the period in which his novel was set, circumstances were radically different in London at the height of the First British Empire, and Paris, which was in the throes of revolution. This dichotomy is not entirely unlike the situation that exists in Dundee Township.

Located on the far western side of West Dundee, Illinois, Randall Oaks Recreation Center is a state of the art workout facility (and library branch) complete with reasonably scenic vistas, hardwood basketball courts, and a three-lane, elevated track. It is clean, spacious, bright (with natural light!), and it is indeed the epitome of opulence.

On the opposite side of the Fox River, in Carpentersville, things aren’t quite so resplendent. Providing a nearly perfect foil to the dazzling beacon of fitness that is Randall Oaks, The Rakow Center is old, dank, cramped, and occasionally pungent. A dozen or so cardio machines (stationary bikes, ellipticals, and treadmills) share two TV screens, which commonly show Fox News and The Food Network. One time, one of the TVs showed George Bush’s funeral. Nothing says Carpe Diem quite like a presidential funeral.

The only clear advantage the Rakow Center has over Randall Oaks is that is has a pool, which I assume contributes to the dank. I would love to use it more often than I do, my jammers are collecting dust, but the open swim schedule was not developed with working adults in mind.

As I mentioned in Chapter One, once I resigned to the fact that I could no longer ride my bicycle, I signed up for a gym membership through the Dundee Township Park District. This membership grants members access to both Randall Oaks and the Rakow Center. According to Google Maps, it is a 17-minute drive from my office to Randall Oaks, and it is a 19-minute drive to the Rakow Center. For a reasonable person, deciding which facility to use would be a no-brainer, but as I imagine you have gleaned — I am not a reasonable person.

For as long as I can remember, I have held the belief that I do not deserve nice things. When most of my friends were asking for Nintendo 64s for Christmas, I asked for an older generation gaming system (Sega Genesis), because I did not believe I deserved a Nintendo 64. To this day, I drive the most minimal car one can drive; my guitar, which I play every day, cost me $90 and was made by a harmonica company; and I have referred to my 750 square foot apartment as being “nicer than I deserve.” When I explained this belief to my therapist, he gently called me a headcase, and I cannot disagree with that assessment. So when it came time to decide which facility I would incorporate into my daily routine, I chose the cramped, gloomy, and oft malodorous facility, because it was what I deserved.

Much like when I started riding my bike, I started out doing very minimal work at the gym. I wanted to get into a routine before I started making the workouts more strenuous. So I would ride the stationary bike or use the elliptical for 25 -35 minutes, do some light stretching, and walk around the two-lane, ground level, 14 laps to a mile indoor track for a few minutes.

The only thing I enjoyed about this time was that it allowed me to catch up on my Phish. Each day I would listen to a set that I had not heard previously. Over the course of the winter, I listened to over 45 concerts in their entirety. This did burn me out on Phish though (for a while), and soon I was moving on to harder jams like Umphrey’s McGee, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, and eventually hitting rock bottom by listening to the Disco Biscuits. These were indeed dark days. Also, it being the dead of winter, they were dark days in the literal sense.

During this time, there was no variety. I went to the same gym, saw the same people, used the same machines, and pined for the days when I could get back on the Fox Trail. Those days were still nearly four months away. For now, it was just me, the machine, my music, and Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives.

As the winter wore on, the amount of time I would spend on the stationary bikes crept up to 50 – 60 minutes. It was mind-numbing, but to combat the tedium, I would ramp up the intensity of the workouts and push through the pain while repeating twisted mantras like, “I am no stranger to the pain. The pain and I are old friends.” “I got the frying pan. I wanted fire.” Or, most commonly, “It may be a while before I feel alive. I will ride, or I may die.”

After New Years, I started incorporating weight lifting into my routine. In doing so, I increased the amount of time I spent at the gym daily from 75 minutes to 100 minutes.

When I stepped on the scale on January 16, 2019, after two and a half months of visiting the gym regularly, the digital display read 220 (lbs) in seemingly hostile red block numbers. This was the completely arbitrary number I decided would dictate when I could graduate from the stationary bike to the treadmill. It was also on this day that I signed up for the Dublindee Kilted 5k (more on this in Chapter Four), so I would be in the mindset that I was training for something. I had not run at all in over five years, and I was giving myself less than two months to be able to run 3.1 miles.

I was losing weight at a clip of two or three pounds per week, but despite all the progress being made, I could feel my resolve flagging. I guess you could say, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” The monotony was getting to me, and I knew that I had to make a change if I wanted to keep going. Cutting the gym out of my routine was not an option, but I could supplement it with a different type of exercise, and lucky for me, there was a gym in downtown Elgin offered a pleasant change of pace. This gym was called: Pro Boxing Fitness.