In Which I Am Humbled by Choreographed Workouts

I'm on the train from Williamsburg back up to DC (if you get the right tickets it's cheaper than driving- not that I could drive anyway because my license expired on my birthday- AND they have free wifi) after another great weekend. As per usual we ran on DOG street and got frozen yogurt (by now I have learned to avoid the places where they scoop the toppings for you because the real draw of frozen yogurt is the toppings and I need to have complete control over that).  We also went to see Ted, which was much better than I imagined it would be. Patrick Stewart narrating "as you know, there is nothing in the world more powerful than the magic of a young boy's wish. Except an Apache helicopter." is pretty much all you need to know about the entire tone of the movie.

Today I agreed to go with Kelsey to her group fitness class, thinking that it would be like every group fitness thing I've ever seen on TV- you know, step up on a thing, step down from the thing, throw a couple of air punches, high five each other for being awesome- that sort of thing. My mistake.

This was a new class with a new rotation of exercises, and so what I got to go to was the special session where all of the trainers at the gym practice teaching the class to the other trainers. Well, the other trainers and me. Despite my reasonable attempts at running every now and then, I have not exactly "lifted weights" in a while. And as it turns out, that's exactly what this class was. Ten songs. One heavy barbell. It was probably not a great sign for my general fitness that I thought I was going to pass out after the first song, which had been helpfully explained to me as the "warmup."

A couple of times, we were allowed to put the barbells down. This was so we could do pushups or something else even less pleasant that made me want to pick up the barbell again. It was an exercise well crafted with negative conditioning.

After an hour that felt like a year, it was over. I managed to say thank you and goodbye to the instructor before hobbling over to Kelsey's office in the fitness center, where I sat silently for about fifteen minutes. Not because I did not want to talk or because I was angry, but because I could not talk.

Kels tried to make me feel better afterwards by telling me that she had seen football players cry while doing that class before. It did not make me feel better. This is all to say that I have decided that, in addition to my running, I am going to get back into working out so that I may one day be able to work out near my girlfriend without appearing foolish.