Tuesday, February 2, 2010

If anyone on Hamilton Mountain felt a tremor yesterday, the epicentre was my ass

Every Monday morning, I get up early and workout with a trainer. It seems ridiculous on a number of levels, but I've come to really love this part of the week. Not only does it fill me with that smug Rockyesque Feelin' Strong Now sense of well-being that greatly improves my mood in the workplace even if most Mondays I can't lift my arms above my head for the pain, BUT it's also the one day a week I'm guaranteed to get my fat ass to the gym. Not just because I'm paying trainer-dude for his time, but also because he'd be disappointed if I didn't show up and if there's one thing I can't bear, it's knowing I've disappointed someone.

(Aside: have I told you about the time in my last year of high school when I had to write a paper on that bloody Pynchon story, Entropy, and I Just. Didn't. Get. It. and when I got the paper back the teacher had written that he was disappointed with my efforts and I ended up prostrate with grief? Yeah, that's how much I hate "disappointment".)

ANYway, in the time I've been doing the trainer thing, I've mostly stopped attending the "Lean&Fit" classes at my gym. Partially due to scheduling difficulties but more because the trainer's spoiled my appetite for the high-intensity circuit-classes. Why? Because trainer-dude is a very quiet, intense kind of guy so our half-hour sessions are very intense and very q-u-i-e-t, a quality I've come to greatly appreciate but which makes the "Lean&Fit" classes unbearable in their volume and pace. "Lean&Fit" instructors never shut up, never get off the microphone, never stop yelling at you. It makes me want to kick them in the yoga pants all the while mewling shutupshutupshutupshutupwhywontyoujustshutup?!! So, I've stopped going and instead try to go and break a sweat on the treadmill 2-3 times a week, which I quite enjoy.

Which led me to begin thinking seriously of taking up running. It's attractive for a number of reasons. It requires very little equipment. It's an excuse to listen to music. It's something you can do alone or in a group, depending on your mood. Every woman I know who's taken up running speaks of it in this reverent tone. One woman I know lost a whopping 60 lbs just from running. It's a religion I want to join. I've got powerful legs, I've been thinking, powerful legs that could probably run pretty darn well. That's it! I'm gonna start running!

Yeah, maybe not. Yesterday, trainer-dude made me run around one of the training rooms. Up one side, shuffle side-to-side across, backwards down the other side of the room, shuffle side-to-side across, and repeat. And it nearly killed me. I do, it turns out, have very powerful legs. I start like a shot, like an absolute shot -- I'm not kidding, for a nano second there, I swear I'd beat a cheetah in a foot race -- but about four steps later the seismic kachunkachunk of my very large badonkadonk catches up with me and all but stops me in my tracks. I think I must be very susceptible to gravity or something because it's like I can barely lift my feet, I'm so earthbound and, well, lumbering. Of course, it didn't help that I was doing this in front of a large mirrored wall and became horribly aware of just how much of me was rolling and heaving as I thundered up and down and back and forth across the matts. Not to mention how much I need a new sports bra and possibly some sort of high-tensile exercise pants to contain/tame these gigantic thighs and all the junk I've got in my trunk. And my arms! What do runners do with their arms? How does it not kill them to hold their arms bent at the elbow like that? Jeeze!

So, maybe running's not my thing. However, with all that power in my legs for steering and my love of winter, not to mention my willingness to appear in public in entirely unflattering high-tensile exercise wear, I'm now seriously thinking that the luge might be just the sport for me.


Kara

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