Me: "I think I'm gonna need a fourth day at two sets."

Laura: "Second set giving you issues?"

Me: "Yeah, on a few exercises. I can do the first set of the bicep curls with no problem, but I usually have to stop somewhere around the sixth rep of the second set. Only way I can finish it out is to stop between each rep to take a breath. Is it going to be better to drop down in weight or to add in another day or two for me to really adjust to this weight?"

Laura: "Well, you're able to finish the set, even though real slow, so we'll keep you at the weight you're at now. We'll just hold you there for an extra day or two until you're really ready to move to three sets."

* * * * *

Oddly enough, I expected it to be much harder to say than that. I've been reserving judgment for two days, hoping that today's weight training workout would go better than Wednesday's. If I learned anything at all from the first week of weight training, it was that I shouldn't judge my eventual performance by how much I struggle during the first day of a changed regimen.

(Apologies if my logic gets a little fuzzy here. I'm trying to type while Tenzing attempts to stick his head in my armpit. This fact is made even less explicable when you know that I'm just back from my workout, and I haven't changed clothes or gotten a shower yet.)

Today told me what I needed to know. By Wednesday, I'll be ready to move to 3 sets apiece on ten of the fourteen exercises. However, there are two that I think are probably questionable at best (the lateral raises and the military presses) and two that I know I'm just not ready for (the bicep curls and the prone leg curls).

Just for reference's sake, so that hopefully I can look back in a year and say, "That's it? That's all I could do?" —

The original plan was to move me to three sets of each exercise on next Wednesday. I'll know for certain on Monday, but right now, I think it's possible that it'll be next Friday before I move to three sets. I'm not much keen on the whole injury thing. From my memory, it's vastly overrated.

* * * * *

Something I've noticed at the gym over the past week; I can't decide whether to feel freakish or to wonder what my fellow exercisers are thinking. I'm generally never alone in the cardio machine area (treadmill, elliptical, stairmaster, etc.) at any given time, but I always seem to be the only exerciser who regularly drinks water while exercising.

I don't know about the rest of you humans, but I seem to have inherited the "Sweats Madly" gene from both of my parents, and I have absolutely no business getting on any kind of cardio machine without having water nearby. But, every day, I watch people - often, the same people on a daily basis - work out for 30-45 minutes without any water. At all.

There's an older gentleman, with buzzed grey hair and a slight stoop, who walks on the second treadmill from the right every day. He walks for an amazingly long time. He's always there when I arrive, and often he stays past the time I get off the elliptical machine, which makes me think that he's walking between one and two hours per day.

Every day, his shirt is soaked. He brings two burgundy hand towels with him each day, and drapes one on each side of the treadmill. Every time I look over at him, he's still there, walking slowly but steadily, shirt soaked, but I have never seen him carrying a water bottle, much less drinking from one.

Meanwhile, I'm drinking from my bottle every five minutes.

Strange.