Before COVID hit I was a gym rat.
I went to the gym seven, eight, even nine times a week! I took classes, I lifted weights, I hit the sauna and the steam room.
Mostly, I lived the culture of the gym. All of my friends were people I met at the gym, and I never went on dates or did anything else but work out and hang around the fitness center. COVID stopped all of that, so it was a major adjustment for my lifestyle. Not only was I alone, but I was eating a lot more calories and not working out! I had to put together a home gym, which entailed enhancing the indoor air quality of my home. Part of the reason I loved the gym so much was the killer air conditioning and superior air quality. My favorite thing to do at the gym was to find a piece of equipment located directly beneath an air vent. The climate control system at the gym uses the same kind of massive air vents that you see in sports stadiums and venues. As I worked out, I would be bathed in ice-cold air blowing from the air vent above, and it was transcendent. The home gym just couldn’t compete with that! My central HVAC system at home is fine for a house, but not on the same level I expect from a gym. I bought a smaller, portable air conditioner for the room, which I run in conjunction with the central HVAC. It’s still not good enough, but it’s better.