Bite Me, UCrap

Yesterday I finally steeled myself and went back into the gym.  I kept telling myself not to worry about numbers, and by patient with myself, but it was still a little nerve-wracking.  I wasn't sure how I'd handle myself.  I needn't have worried.  I didn't lift well or anything like that, but I forgot how much I hate the gym crowded with undergrads, so the slow-simmering rage kept be distracted from myself.

The rage got worse when my mentally patting myself on the back for walking into the gym and my narrative about how I was going to work hard was put to an abrupt stop:

Seriously.  The place is closed all of next week.  The hell.  Fine that this University lets all the children bugger off for the full week, but closing down everything else is just asshole business.

So now I've got another wrench in my aim to create a new normal that I can live with.  I'm worried that I'll lose the little bit of momentum I have.  The boss is gone this week and next, so part of what I was hoping for was to use the freedom to establish a habit where I break up the day with a gym trip instead of saving it for after the lab (that was part of how it got pushed out to begin with: who wants to go to the gym after an 11 hour work day? or cook, or launder clothing, or do anything else for that matter?).

Aside from the fretting, how was the first day back?  Well, there was the aforementioned rage.  The crowding of the place really gets to me, because I am just not happy having to wait for a piece of space or a bit of a machine or something.  I get especially peeved when someone is claiming more than they need, like if they're parked in a squat rack to do their deadlifts or they've stockpiled dumbbells at their feet from their previous sets or if they don't clean off a bar, or if they're parked in the middle of the room to muck with their hair.  I know that expecting some 19-year-old boy to clean up after himself is asking far far far too much, but I can dream, can't I?  Lifting just might succeed where climbing has failed and get me to get up earlier in the morning.  Ha.  I shiver just thinking about it.  I'm more likely to become gregarious.

Right now my pecs are a little sore, but it's that good sore of having tried to bench more than I should have, rather than the full-body ache of nascent depression I was starting to get a couple of weeks ago, or that worrying stiff ache of my hands the day after some hard climbing.  It's a sore I am sort of looking forward to becoming reacquainted with.

The question is, how do I keep up the motivation for now, and what can I do in my own time and space to keep from returning to the world of overworked sloth?