A hidden benefit of exercise

Going to the campus gym is a lot like going to one of those cabins in Siberia where you sit in the sauna for awhile and then run and jump in a frozen lake.

Both are hot.

ZOMG the campus gym is so hot during the summer.  There's no air conditioning, and 90 something degrees + 20-year old boys trying to burn off some extra testosterone on the weight bench = heat and sweat.  On the hottest days the floor is slippery.  Gross.

During the winter it's not much better.  The gym is part of a building with classrooms, and so it's heated to a comfortable (but uncomfortable if you are running on a treadmill with no air moving) 68 degrees.  By the time I get off the treadmill, I look like I did my run in the shower.

Those Russian sauna things also involve a lot of sweaty bros hanging out.

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And both involve ice cold water.

First you have to trek across the chilly locker room/ frozen tundra in a state of undress.

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Then, you take the icy plunge.

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At the campus gym, you have to wait for a glacier to melt to have a warm shower.  If you go on M, W, or F, the swimmers usually use the shower enough that the water has climbed from "Lake Baikal" to "tepid", but on T and R, when I usually go, the best you can hope for is "Not frost-bite inducing".

Then you repeat.  At the sauna, you just... repeat.  At the Nat, it means bundling up in all your winter clothes (sauna) and walking out into the freezing cold to get to work (frozen lake).

Sounds like fun, huh?