RETURN TO SPINNAKER POINT

I’m back. Last week I paid my annual dues at Spinnaker Point and this time I intend to get my money’s worth. At $160 the city-operated recreational facility is the best bargain in town, unless you only show up three times like I did one year, which cost me a little more than $50 per exercise session. So I skipped the next year – which cost me nothing. But my doctor doesn’t agree. She thinks it cost me big-time health-wise to sit around all year gaining weight. I tried to argue that I got a lot of writing done, but the doc ain’t buying it.

"At your age", she tells me, a guy can’t afford to avoid exercise.

"But I can!" I protest. "I’m really good at avoiding exercise."

And it’s true. I’ve had decades of practice. I avoided it with great success in grammar school and high school. I never took a gym class. I never played a sport. I never ran on a track, learned to swim, climbed a rope, caught a medicine ball or vaulted a pommel horse. I had a note. It was a general all-purpose note that covered everything from asthma, pneumonia and poison ivy to chicken pox, athlete’s feet and heart disease. You name it, I survived it.

I managed, away from school, to be pretty active. But in-school, I was sick as a dog. In my day, if you wore glasses, looked skinny, got high grades and had a note, no one asked questions.

So this whole Spinnaker Point thing is fresh territory for me. Although I’ve certainly seen exercise facilities on TV and in the movies, I never really took the plunge. For starters, I was pleased to discover, the place doesn’t even smell bad. It is brightly lit, with windows all around. Kids under 18 are not allowed, which is a bonus. There are also very few super jocks, pro wrestling types and dating singles. Unlike commercial gyms, the people here really look like they need a workout. Because it is a city facility, there is no health bar, no buff guys with clipboards and no muscled babes trying to arm wrestle you into a fitness program. They’ve got those programs if you look, but the pressure is dialed way down. No one bugs me, tries to rub me down or talk me up. If I liked sweating, this would be my favorite place to do it.

As an aging exercise novice, I especially appreciate the lack of attention I get here. I can slip in and out like a ghost, literally without speaking a word. Although the place is never crowded, off-peak hours are best. That’s when it is easier to blend with the other grunting, pasty white blobs. I do my 15 or 20 minutes on the rowing machines, partly because I used to take my rowing shell along the Piscataqua Rivers, but largely because no one else ever seems to use them.

Then I jog a portion of a mile around the smooth indoor track or toss a basketball through a few, usually very few, hoops. I think about trying out the warm gemlike pool. I read the notes on the bulletin board and the signs on the weight machines. I weigh myself on the scale and buy a bottle of water. It isn’t exactly what you’d call a killer program.

But then again, my goals are less than stellar. I want to loose seven pounds, talk to no one, sweat as little as possible, and get home quickly. I don’t think that is asking too much. But to do that, the doc says, I have to show up on a more-or-less regular basis. And this bright, welcoming, affordable facility makes the first step easier.

Copyright © 2007 by J. Dennis Robinson. All rights reserved.

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