Well, the last slice of pumpkin pie has been devoured and those tiny morsels of turkey picked apart. Holiday M’M’s, candy canes, and Christmas cookies have all made us loosen our belts. New Year’s roles around and our resolutions have been made. The most popular? To lose those extra inches before it’s time to fit into last summer’s itsy bitsy bikini to score that hottie for that oh-so-unforgettable romance during Spring Break.

All that said, why not run to the Leslie Quick, Jr. “RecPlex” for a quick jog, a light swim, or a ride on the stationary bike? Not so fast. With this year’s Spring Break less than two months away, the gym is the new social scene on campus. Expect to sweat it out while weighting long for that coveted piece of pound-shedding machinery.

“About two hundred to three hundred students come in to work out each day,” speculated an unnamed RecPlex source. “Give it two weeks. I guarantee that it will die down.”

But how long are students willing to wait for their workout? Is it really worth it to be a slave to the excruciating gym grind?

The RecPlex currently has a limited number of treadmills, stationary bikes, Stairmasters, and elliptical machines along with the pool and a mediocre weight room. They also have a few rowing machines as well, but with the amount of traffic that drives through the gym each day over a time span of around 15 hours, are these 20 or so machines enough to meet the demands of a body-conscious campus? According to Tricia Cipriani, ’04, no.

“I think that the gym needs to get more machines for the amount of students that go here,” said Cipriani. “It isn’t going to get less crowded in a few weeks; it will be crowded the entire semester until they do something about it.”

Sarah McNeely, ’04, feels the exact same way. “There need to be more machines. Who wants to wait that long just to work out?” With these looming problems, the RecPlex says that there are currently plans to enlarge the gym, but when and how remains to be seen.

So to fight those winter-weight blues, why not indulge in a refreshing walk or a jog around the track? Or how about joining one of the energy-filled classes that the RecPlex is offering? Yoga is all the rage and Ti-Bo is still a fave, so go down to the gym and sign up for a class with your roomie.

In the risk of sounding like a Jenny Craig ad—it cannot be helped—if you really want to jump start your new year for Spring Break, break out your Buns of Steel or the Grind workout with Eric Nice. I know you have at least one cheesy workout video. With all the waiting, your workout won’t start until after bikini season.

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