Sunday, November 9, 2008

The BB-t-BB Challenge! GRRRRRR

OK so to make the best of my time in prison....errr....Sao Paolo Brazil. I have decided this is teh absolutly BEST time to start working to get back in shape. In the past I had slowly started to do some runs and time on the trainer but due to travel and work stress and shortened time at home meaning less time to do all the chores and home related improvements. It has been hard. But now the situation has changes slightly.

1) the Bathroom remodel is Finished! So now I have little major renovations to make for another few months.

2) I am in Brazil with nothing to do except work, eat, sleep and attempt to watch TV. The TV part is where I think I can fit in a regular waorkout or 2. So with little distratctions once I leave work I can definitly put in an hour or 2 a day.

So As extra incentive I bet my wife that I would lose 5 lbs by the time I return from Brazil. If I do not make the weight, I have to do all the laundry for a week, AND I will clean teh bathrooms when I return (a task I find MOST unappealing).

Anyhow, to make this more inspiring and solid I have given this mission a name: The Brazil Back to Basics Blowout! AKA BB-t-BB

So to kick off the BB-t-BB I decided to go to the hotel gym. When I got there my immediat feeling was WOW! what a nice gym! It had a small pool, a separate weight room, and separate room with the treadmills and stationary bikes. The weight room seemed impressive, with I think 20 differet stations with a combo of freeweights and machines.

However, as with any other pseudo luxury hotel, thats where teh WOW factor ends at a distant look. I was going to use the treadmill for a 30 minute run, there were 5 treadmills. All of them were turned off. So I went to turn on teh first one, turned the on switch.....Nothing. Went to the next one again turned it on, Hey teh lights came on alright! But when I pushed the speed button nothing happenned. The treadmill was a few years old from teh looks of it and the buttons were worn down from years of pushing on it. So I pushed the button hard....Nothing. OK so now I went to the next one, going through the routine again and this time the thing worked. So out of 5 treadmills 2 do not work. As I looked closer at the other machines they all looked the same ... old and unmaintained.

That is what my definition of a Pseudo luxury hotel is. Its sort of like the original intent for the hotel was to be a super luxury hotel, so the physical structure of the hotel is modern and nice looking, but as you get closer you see the wear marks that result from lack of proper maintenance. Thats what the "Estanplaza Berrini" Hotel is like. Excellent intents...10 years ago. But lack of followup. Still an OK place to stay but so far do not expect too much from it. But thats OK so long as they keep the rooms clean, which it appears they do.

ANyhow I managed to have a great workout. Ran 30 minutes at a 10K pace, followed it with a 20 minute core workout.

3 comments:

HolisticGuru said...

I wish you the best with the BB-t-BB. Although, you should do the laundry when you get back regardless of whether you win the bet or not.

HolisticGuru said...

By the way, you're welcome.

Ski Dad said...

Yo that is crazy talk!