24-hour fitness 8/2/10

The money I spend for my fitness is outrageous and currently I am a member for two gyms: Lifetime Fitness and Bally's. I regularly visit four different gyms: Allen, Plano and Mockingbird locations of Lifetime and Plano location of Bally's. Where I go depends on my day's activity, kind of exercise that needs to get done, where Stan has his spinning class and if I am driving or taking the train. During the semester, if I work out in the morning, it is best to be at Mockingbird location. If I work out in the evening, it is best to be at Plano location of Bally's. Those are literally"on"my commuting route and leaves no excuse for me to skip workout. So I got concerned about the status of Bally's Plano when I saw the notice saying that they are shutting down wet area for good on July 2nd. Then on Friday, Tony received a call from his sister, Teresa, saying the Plano location had shut down. He said she had been looking into three possibilities, 1)LA Fitness: Spring Creek and K Ave., 2)24-hour Fitness: Alma and Parker, across the street from Bally's and 3)Lifetime. Teresa is certified to teach aqua classes and having a good lap pool is a must. I am more into having flexibility and 24-hour Fitness has many locations. Originally when I moved to Texas, I looked into it as well. One possible location was on Beltline and Tollway and another one was right next to North Dallas Lifetime. I couldn't see myself traveling on Beltline to get to the gym. Lifetime was Taguchi sensei's recommendation and if I want to travel to Marsh and Trinity Mill, Lifetime was on the kiddy corner. So I signed up with Lifetime.

I learned that 24-hour fitness has a similar structure: the price doesn't depend on how many gyms you go, but "level" that you get to go like Lifetime. This is going to be an alternative to Bally's, so my first location to go would be Plano location on Parker and Alma. The one on Allen seems to be very nice and I think that is going to be the closest gym from home. (It is north and not on my commute.) If I drive, there is one on southbound 75 service road, north of Royal, where I visited Sun and Ski Sports the other day. There is one on Greenville and Mockingbird. This is close enough for school and previously I hoped this would let me give up to be the level of Mockingbird Lifetime to save money. However it is too far from Mockingbird station and only becomes a possibility on car commute if I want to go north-south on Greenville/K Ave. to avoid rush hour 75. It is not 24 hours although the name of the business suggests otherwise. (Another location in Plano on Park is not 24 hours either.) Another possibility is Campbell and Coit. I thought about taking Coit to/from Hillcrest to be another possiblity to avoid rush hour 75. So I decided to download 7-day free pass and start visiting locations.

The one I downloaded the pass and my first visited was Allen location this morning. Since their payment plan was monthly, I signed up. Then I took a look and they have a decent spinning bike. I am going to see if their evening class is any training possibility. I will also visit Alma location with treadmill tomorrow morning.