(written 12/28/10)
i had been swimming forever and was completely confident in the water, any water, for endless amounts of time. i was already attached to my bike at the ass, regularly clocking some serious mileage on a single speed beach cruiser. and i picked up running after a bout of 'left out syndrome', watching my closest friends compete in distance races. eventually, my super slow brain put all the pieces together... you're a triathlete! so i took that and ran with it! i ran, swam, and biked with that bitch.
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| athletic build? for a skeleton! |
i put the word out to my co-worker who i had already dubbed my 'unofficial running coach' and opened myself to any and all info he wanted to send my way. a minute later, i bought a road bike and full on triathlon training began. well, training as best i could put it together by myself, for myself. a lifetime of having to work my ass off just to be decent at a variety of sports had really turned me off to group fitness. so basically, my life was intervals and distance. i can't manage anything more sophisticated than that on my own; the nanosecond i break a sweat, i lose my goddam mind! as i swim my first 50m, i seriously think, "1, 1, 1..." and the next 50m, i think, "2, 2, 2..." during intervals, i think, "hard, hard, hard..." and "rest, rest, rest..." for however many minutes at a time. my progress was steady, i never really hit that "training plateau", so there was plenty of motivation there. but then there was this... one day, after a lap swim, i realized i looked like a starved, drowned rat. i had dropped so much weight and was so scrawny on top, it was like a double bilateral mastectomy pediatric patient. but what did i expect? i was morphing into all the middle aged women i'd met over the seasons of races.
so for seven months, i went sedentary. i aimed to gain weight in all the right places and it worked. my rack was back and i was looking mighty confined in my jeans. at the start it was hard for me to not break a sweat everyday. it affected my sleep and moods for the worse, but my achievements in packing on the pounds made it worth it. at about the 10 pound mark, i started to feel it in my [arthritic] joints, but even that wasn't reason enough to get back on the workout wagon. it wasn't until one fateful day at work, as i struggled to peel an orange, that the decision was made to make a change. i was 15 pounds heavier and happy with my visual, but i was weak as fuck and my joints were begging me to not even walk. seemingly, the only perfect solution was to find a group of people to workout with, because if i go it alone again, i'll just be back at unhappy drowned rat. this was my farewell to boobs!
so after my failure to launch on that fucking orange, i remembered this freebie workout thing i went to a couple years ago. i didn't even go back to the spot to jog my memory on it, i just blindly emailed and let them know i'm down to join. if i were to join a dime-a-dozen gym, i knew i'd just end up isolating myself and jumping on a treadmill or elliptical or whatever the hell else i could hop on to imitate the same shit i've always done. well, i go and i have to tell you, this place doesn't have members, it has disciples! it was my worst nightmare come true.
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| much like the dodgers taking the division title in '09, this cleavage won't be seen again for a long time! |
we're doing stuff at this place, lifting weight, where you really have to consider form and maybe even a sequence of movements. i struggle wrapping my brain around it, each and every time, and i convince myself as i go that no one there is looking at me. but the second i'm convinced and entering confident, someone starts cheering me on and telling me what a good job i'm doing. i'll kill myself! and then there's your times and weight amounts lifted that they want to write on the wall. i guess some people look at it and think about their next goal based on that number or even get overcome with pride at a PR posted. i look at it, and that number shames me. i have only very recently convinced myself that my level of strength is actually very important to our little exercise community. it's the level to which all comparisons begin. if it were a number, it'd be 0. i keep hearing "everyone starts somewhere", but i've been to this place 22 times thus far, and i haven't seen any other people starting at (or even near) my somewhere. and see, i don't really mind that i'm starting at 0, but i don't want to be reminded, consoled or cheered about it. it can just exist, i'll have it written in my heart, and everyone else ignore it. we'll use the day i can do one push-up as our indication to acknowledge my presence in the gym.
i'm loving the actual shit that we do. the workouts are great and i already feel stronger in my back, which is making my runs butter, and i'm on my bike with no problems from my hip. i wanted to workout in a group and that sure as shit is turning out to be the worst part of working out in a group; the group. so while i'm sure many people join these things and the toughest commitment is the actual workouts or schedule, mine is overcoming this social retardation i have in a fitness forum.
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