Training Commando Style…..Without the Weapons Portion

So today was my second session with New Trainer.  Today, we were training much like I believe Pablo Escabar or Noreiga trained their commandos.  The only thing missing was assembling a machine gun blind-folded and crawling on my belly through the mud under barbed-wire fencing. 

For starters, I am so ridiculously sore (still) from Tuesday, that I have a weird jerky Frankenstein walk going on.  My leg muscles feel like they seize up when I sit down and my abs are so sore that it is hard to stand up completely straight – so between the stiff straight legs and the weirdly-bent-at-the-abs posture, it forces my arms to move in odd jerky movements.  I was expecting villagers to rush me with torches at any minute.  Depsite this situation, I did get up early and went to the gym.

We started with the odd little 3-minutes of yoga, which still perplexes me and I spent way too much time thinking about it after it is over.  We started out with sets that involved multiple motions and squats for each exercise – meaning things that require coordination.  For anyone who knows me – I am a bit challenged in the “natural grace” department.  You know how hospital’s have the pain scale from 1 – 10 with the faces to judge – so for a score of 1 there is the little roud facing smiling broadly and for a 10 the face is crying and the mouth is turned all the way down and it appears to be shaking a bit?  Well, if there were a “natural grace” scale with a 10 being a ballerina mid-jump elegantly extended and a 1 being the girl crumpled at the bottom of the stairs with food on her shirt and a shoe missing – I would be right under the girl at the bottom of the stairs, with gum in my hair.  So, essentially, every time the exercise has multiple parts, I have to be shown repeatedly how to do them – REPEATEDLY.  I don’t think New Trainer is fond of this particular affliction. 

I managed to struggle through the first hideous multi-part round of exercises, with minimal face-making – keep in mind it is only my second session, so I am still on my best behavior.  Which, by the way, is a work-out on its’ own.  Then this happens:

New Trainer:  Are you ready for the fun stuff?

Me:  I don’t know.  The last time I heard that I ended up on that horrible machine that has actual elevator like stairs that you climb and I nearly fell off – twice.

New Trainer:  Huh.  Well, here’s what we are going to do………. (and he goes on to detail some sort of horrific multi-part exercises that I will explain later, but they are called the Superman – guess who’s not a super hero?)

Me:  Is this negotiable?

New Trainer: (He looks comfused, surprised and possibly a tiny bit offended and then very queitly says) No

Me: mental eye-roll, inside sigh, silent swearing

This went on the FULL 60 minutes.  I am nearly crippled at this point.  I got stuck in my office chair today when my legs muscles refused to unlock so I could stand up and I called my dogs to come and eat the cheese cubes and pecans I knocked off the counter, because I couldn’t bend over to clean them up.  I am set to run on Saturday – I can’t imagine how that’s going to work, but I will keep you posted.

The New Trainer

So I had my first session with the new trainer this morning.  Here is how it went down: 

7:25 am – warm up a little bit on the eliptical. 

7:27 am – feeling good, glad to be back.  My favorite workout partner and I are on the same schedule again.  This should be fun.

7:35 am – begin with yoga poses mini-warm-up (I know, it IS kind of odd. And as an FYI – I don’t like yoga.  I took lessons for a short time and the only part I enjoyed or found benefit in was the part at the very end where you lay on your back and look at the ceiling)

7:45 am – still thinking about the yoga warm-up – it perplexes me.

7:47 am – WTF???  Why is my set of 4 exercises straight from the Marine training guide?  And why are there 4 instead of the usual and standard 3 rotations? 

7:55 am – maybe the next set will be better. 

7:56 am – Oh SO much worse. A squat while lifting the weight bar over your head for 25 reps, then followed by side-squats while holding a weighted ball, 15 reps on each side – each time, plus something else.   I can practically hear “Eye of the Tiger” playing in the background.

8:05 am – VOMIT.  That’s right – on the VERY FIRST day.  I ultimately blame Craig.

8:15 am – Right back to the same excercise I fled from mid-count to vomit violently and we pick back up to complete the 10 I didn’t finish prior to previously mentioned near death experience.

8:16 am – Continue training “Million Dollar Baby” style

8:25 am – Nope, not finishing a minute early.  We are now lifting more heavy things over our heads, broken up my double crunches.  Still hearing the Rocky music eminating from this workout.

8:32 am – Drag myself to my car with promises of returning on Thursday morning.

What’s in store for me next session you ask?  Probably shadow boxing with Mr. T.

Back on the Wagon

So tomorrow is my first session with the new trainer.  Since I don’t know him and he doesn’t appear to be charmed by my own special brand of personality, I won’t be using his real name on this blog – at least not yet.  So for now, I will simply refer to him as Trainer. 

Let’s see, what should you know?  It’s been a stupid long time since I blogged, because it’s been a stupid long time since I have been to the gym.  I have a laundry list of excuses, but really it’s my own hibernation that has kept me away.  It’s really cold here and we are digging out from under 6″ of snow and ice – which is a lot for Nashville, TN.  My husband and I were in sunny southern California with my work when the sleet and snow rolled in early on Friday.  I started getting e-mails pretty early and didn’t really pay much attention because it was sunny and 68 degrees at 11 am when I was walking up the sidewalk in downtown L.A. to get lunch.  When I sat quasi-stranded in the L.A. airport on Saturday afternoon, I began to pay more attention.  I did end up getting home on Saturday night, although much later than anticipated and all flights from L.A. to Nashville after my 12:30 pm flight were cancelled.  When we did finally land in Nashville – more than two hours late – my husband and I were SO not prepared for the weather and the near death march to our car in the airport parking lot.  Neither of us had a coat or gloves and my husband was wearing a cotton shirt and slick, shiny Kenneth Cole loafers, which immeidately lost what every tiny whiff of traction they may have provided and then filled with snow, as Tom slipped around trying to dig snow away from the tires so we could leave.  I was actually worse off, because, I had on tiny ballet flats and no socks.  My father warned me on Friday night to dress warm for my return home on Saturday – which was useless because we didn’t pack anything warm on Tuesday when I packed our suitcase – again, southern California, sunny and 70 degrees each day.  Nashville – the frozen tundra. 

I have lots of travel already booked in 2010 and I am struggling horribly to get to the gym while I am away from home.  I spent a week in New Jersey in mid-January (that’s a whole seperate post – these were not my people) and averted my eyes everytime I passed the glass door to the hotel gym.  In a nutshell, January was a HUGE bust, but I am back on track and feeling really optomistic.  My first new trainer appointment is at 7:30 am, Tuesday morning – I will keep you posted!

Grieving

Hey there – remember me?  The girl wanting to run the 2010 NYC Marathon?  I have missed many many posts over the past two weeks.  A ton of things happening with Christmas and work and the gym – most of them non-work out related though.  I have been to the gym, but haven’t felt inspired to post it here.  I haven’t suddenly become nice and compliant with my trainer, nor has he stopped making me squat and lunge and ride a bike up a mountainside, while busting me for looking at the clock and making faces behind his back.  In fact, I have sort of taken to openly taunting Craig during our workout sessions and just today, he chose to do the same right back.  Well played. 

Here is the big sad news that has weighed me down and kept me from posting the past couple of weeks.  Craig is leaving – moving back home to Oklahoma.  For some reason, I feel the need to say, I am not to blame for this.  I didn’t push him off the edge with my irrational gym behavior and cause him to exclaim, “Pack the car, I can’t be in the same state with this psycho!”  Instead Craig, his wife and young children are moving to be near his family – and while I totally support this in theory, the reality is pretty crappy.  For anyone who has had a good trainer you know how truly devastating this is.  A true trainer is also your therapist, buddy, voice of reason, person who calls you on your crap, a supporter, an encourager and sort of irritating. Seriously, it’s a big job – and I like to think that I am one of the easier clients.  Your trainer is at the top of your speed dial – right behind your hair stylist and your husband – the order of those three may regularly shift, but always in the top three. 

I have two more sessions with Craig next week and then I meet my new trainer.  Someone who will probably not find my early morning petulant behavior amusing.  I completely understand there are other competent trainers at my gym (or so I have been repeatedly told), but at the end of the day, the real sadness is this:  I am saying goodbye to a friend. 

To Craig and his lovely family – I wish you all the best in your new (old) home and pray God’s blessings on you and your household abundantly. 

I guess this blog now becomes two-fold – breaking in a new trainer and working toward that marathon.

An Open Apology to My Trainer

As you will remember, a couple of weekd ago, I showed up at the gym on an insanely cold December morning for a 6 am appointment and no one could locate Craig.  We called and texted and I made a desperate, back of the milk carton plea – turns out he had ditched me.  Well, today, it happened.  I so did not show up for my 6 am appointment on the coldest day of the year (so far).  It did not go unnoticed, in fact, Craig sent me this text message:

“NICE!!! SO WHAT IS IT THIS TIME?  Had to walk the dog?  Help D. on a project? Couldn’t find my shoes! Dog ate my keys!”

Yeah right, as if the dog would eat keys.  I have to point out that this missed appointment was not entirely my fault – my husband hurt his back earlier in the week.  He was drying off our dog, who was laying in the floor and he ended up with a slipped disk and a crazy hunched  over half-walk, half-shuffle.  We took him to a long doctor’s appointment and medications are in involved and maybe a little physicial therapy in six weeks or so, depending on how he does or doesn’t heal.  Unfortunatley, this was the week that work was insanely busy and I wasn’t able to take time off. 

So, now, I offer up my most humble apology to my trainer Craig:  “Hey sorry guy.  Now we’re even!”  

And just to be clear, I am only apologizing for missing the 6 am appointment this morning – not the crappy attitude, the whining, complaining, making faces, rolling my eyes, repeated sighing, dragging my feet between sets, griping about it shamelessly on this blog or inciting others to this juvenile behavior – I totally stand behind all of those things.

It’s Monday

What to do on a cold rainy Monday morning?  Wake your husband up at 5:15am and make him take you to the gym.  He doesn’t complain about it, but he doesn’t appear to be especially cheery either.  I felt especially groggy this morning, but managed to get into the gym early enough to get in 20 minutes of warm-up, primarily because Craig was almost 10 minutes late.  Still way better than the previous no-show from two weeks ago – by the way, I will probably never let that go.  I did manage to take my own towel from home, so I wasn’t forced to constantly wipe my face and neck on my t-shirt (classy) or use massive and massive handfuls of paper towels like I did yesterday when I ran and had forgotten my towel at home.  There is an odd phenomenon at my gym with the temperature – for starters it will always be just a bit too warm year-round, but the colder the weather outside the more tropical it becomes inside.  Of course, a manufactured 70+ degrees becomes oppressive pretty quickly and it also ups the stink factor. 

Today was a stupid stopwatch day and here is how that went down:

Craig: “You ready?”

Me: “Yes, let’s just get this over with”

Craig: “Well, let me get my stopwatch.”

Me: “The stopwatch? Again? Why?”

Craig: “We haven’t done the stopwatch in awhile”

Me: “Yeah, except for all last week”

Craig: “It’s Monday”

And that was the end of the conversation.  I need to point out that just saying what day of the week it is, isn’t really an appropriate answer or response. It was all stopwatch this morning.

Here is how we started: a bicep pull, which when done my way wasn’t too bad, but when done correctly made my arms burns, a shoulder/back pull type of deal that I also didn’t do correctly on the first rotation, but again liked my version better than the correct way and finally the step-up.  On the very first rotation in the tropically warm gym on a Monday morning with a stopwatch.  Kudos to you Craig for your obvious efforts to not make any friends this morning.  Three times through and then to the old-timey stair climber to out run the puma for a minute and then on to this little rotation: an ab on the weird half-ball, with knees bent and one leg extended and hands behind your head (some days I feel like I am also training to be a circus performer), a free weight bicep curl that requires you to sit on the edge of a bench and lean back at an angle, pull both knees up and balance yourself upright by using your ab muscles while curling a large free weight in each hand (and by the way, balance is my natural enemy, so this was real great for me) and finally a reverse lunge with weights and arm extensions (which means you lunge backwards, and fully extend your arms at shoulder height while holding a giant weight in each hand).  This is where things took an unfortunate turn.  I made it through 2 full rotations and on the last one – my final ab on the weird half-ball, it happened – the queasy hot feeling and I knew what was coming.   That’s right, this morning, at approximately 6:40 am, Craig made me vomit.  My husband’s first question is always, “Did you make it to the bathroom?”  And of course, I do, because I am not a spastic 6-year old on Christmas party day who has stuffed myself with cupcakes and chocolate coins.  When I return to the workout floor, Craig says, “How are we doing?  Okay?”  and of course I also go, “Yes”, but really I am thinking, “Well, I just exertion vomited before breakfast, so I’m probably not the best I could be, but thanks for asking.”  I no longer feel embarrassed about my sprints to the bathroom and the loud retching and coughing that ensues, because on any given day, who knows how many other trainees are in there too.  I have encountered other of Craig’s clients in the locker room with the same ashen look, desperately washing their face, or laying prone on one of the long benches staring at the ceiling while gulping in air and fearful of sudden movement. 

I did finish my workout, which included more ab work and a three minute stint on the bike and I’m not sure what else – it all happened in my post vomit haze.  It’s Monday.

Bitter Disappointment

I’ve alwys heard the phrase “bitter disappointment”, but never really equated a definition to it.  I’ve been disappointed at various times by various things, people and places, but would never have felt “bitterly” so – until today.  Today was a run and I had one hour (60 minutes) and needed to make five miles – that was my goal.  I’ve worked hard all week, I got the appropriate rest and I put forth all of the effort I had today and what did I end up with?  4.53 miles.  That’s a full half a mile off my goal and makes my average time per mile pretty sucky.  In case you are challenged in the long division department that this distance means it takes me 13.25 minutes to run a mile – well that’s my average anyway.  In order to complete the marathon in 6 hours, I need to average a 12-minute mile consistently.  I can’t help but me fixated with this failure.  As people have asked me about today’s run and I gave my time and distance, they have said all of the right and encouraring things – “That’s still grea!”  “That’s more than I could run!”   “You’re still so early in your training, the speed will come”, etc. 

It was an immediate feeling of regret as soon as the treadmill shut off at the one hour mark.  I felt sick, and a little sad and a little more sick.  By choice, I don’t eat before I run.  I know this is probably the opposite of all written and spoken nutritional advice on the planet, but for me, running on an empty stomach produces my best times and distance.  I have tried multiple different eating approaches and I can’t seem to keep my stamina when I have to compete with the digestion process while I am trying to run.  It also reduces the amount of vomitting.

As a logical person, I can rationalize that only running 4.53 miles in one hour is still a good thing and certainly has more qualifications of a victory than a defeat on a cold overcast Sunday afternoon in December.  Instead, it was all I could manage to wipe off the treadmill, walk back to the dressing rooms and then sit on the bench in the corner and cry with the overwhelming feeling of failure.  How odd, that I would instantly jump to that conclusion.  It has even colored the rest of my day and I have given my self a screaming headache thinking about it. 

I realize this is quite the departure from my regular posts and really out of character with my normal state of being, for those who know me well.  I would imagine Monday’s post will be much different as I have a 6 am appointment with Craig – provided he shows up of course – as you will remember he stood me up 2 weeks ago at 6 am on Monday morning.  I didn’t post anything about my Friday morning workout with Craig because Friday ended up being a totally schitzophrenic day and I worked until almost 7 pm.  In a quick nutshell, it was pure Craig and we did difficult things on our “easy” day. I did have one really special moment,when Craig indicated we would next be doing an ab exercise and mimed the side-to-side rotation with the weighted ball, which we had already done every other day that week – suddenly I heard my voice say, “Really?  Don’t you know any new tricks?”  Turns out Craig did in fact know a new trick and I will not be asking that question again on Monday.

When Wednesday Went Bad

I had to be at the gym super-early this morning and it was really cold and rainy and exactly the kind of morning you should stay rolled up in your red-plaid flannel pj’s under the heavy duvet.  Instead?  Up at 5 am, took the dogs for a quick potty walk up the sidewalk and then spent about 10 minutes thinking of what excuse I was going to give Craig for not showing up.  Instead, my sainted husband (you can just call him Tom) got up and drove me to the gym.  I have a cracked retina and cannot drive when the dark and the rain occur at the same time – that’s a story for another post though.  I was secretly happy that Tom volunteered to drive me because I love having company in the car early in the mornings.  We used to car pool when our schedules weren’t so opposite, because we only work about 4 blocks from each other.  I am super chatty in the mornings in the car, whereas my husband looks like a newborn puppy clutching two large travel mugs of coffee.  His eyes are barely open and his head is all too big and wobbly, like he can’t hold it all the way up and he looks as if he might tip over at any minute.  So, naturally, I leave the driving to him and while I carry on a running comentary about everything we pass, any thought that pops into my head, any conversation I may have had in the past year and at least once I will loudly proclaim, “Don’t you LOVE having company in the mornings?  This is way better than riding to work alone!”  Honestly, I can’t believe he never stabbed with his clicky pen  at some point.  This morning I only semi-protested his need to drive through the dark and freezing rain to the gym – seriously, I’m like Ray Charles out there – I was inside feeling giddy at having company at 5:30 am.  Don’t become confused and believe that Tom actually went into the gym with me and worked out- that is just nonsense.  The gym is against eveything Tom believes it – which incidentally is real butter, salt, salted meat, salted vegetables cooked in butter, cheeseburgers and anything available in “popper” form.  As I made sure I had a work out towel and water and a clip for my hair, Tom wondered out loud if he should take a blanket with him to cover up with in the car while I was working out.  Tom also was not about drive the 10 minutes back to our house and then return to pick me up – instead he was planning on napping in the car while Craig ran my early morning self all over the gym (more on that in a minute).  Fortunately, we were able to leave without the large fuzzy blanket and Tom was able to sustain himself with just the multiple layers of clothes he was wearing and the working heater in our Jeep Liberty.

Once at the gym, I was a little bit worried because I was there 10 minutes before my session with Craig so I could get in the appropriate cardio warm-up and there was no Craig.  As you will recall, he stood me up two weeks ago at this very same time of the morning.  Turns out he was just waiting until the last minute because it requires no cardio warm-up to play with a stop watch and sit on the giant ab ball or lean against the front of the bike while I work out.  Good for you Craig.

Now, here is where Wednesday went bad – today was the circuit, with the stopwatch and the bike between every single exercise.  And let me just say a kudos to Mr. Craig, because he has been so on his game this week.  On Monday, we did these ridiculous leg-crap-things called dead leg lifts.  That is the actual name of it and it always messed me up big time.  You stand up straight and then hold a super heavy and large free weight in one hand and then bend at the waist, keeping one leg straight and extending the other one straight out behind you and you lower the Buick sized weight to the ground and then all the way back up – 15 on each leg, 3 times.  So today, I can’t completely bend my legs at the knee because the musles up the back of my upper leg are frozen and have been since Monday.  S0 today, we do something even worse.  Two very heavy and Buick sized free weights – one for each hand – and you do a full squat to the ground and you pick them up, then a full squat back to the ground and you put them back down – that counts as one.  So, I have these frozen muscles already, then I am on the bike, then the stupid heavy weight squats and then back on the bike.  While I was forced to squat all the way down to pick up the weights off the ground, when squatting to return them to the ground, I would only go far ennough to hope they wouldn’t bounce and kill someone and I would just let go of the weight and let it hit the ground.  The result was, everytime, they would hit the ground and sort of roll in opposite directions and I would have to corral them with my foot to get them back in position to pick up again.  Yeah, that’s how I roll.  So it looks like this, full squat to pick up the offending heavy weights, then a 3/4 squat and just let them go, where they fall and sort of roll around, while I stand back up and then roll them back with first my right foot, then my left.  I bet Craig is still wondering how he got so lucky with signing me on as a client.  I gave no hint of this type of behavior in our initial meeting or even my first couple of sessions.  Too late now, sucker!

The circuit went on forever and ever and ever – or for one hour, whichever comes first.  Since I constantly complain about how closely Craig does or does not watch that stupid little stopwatch, he now shows me the time on it when he stopped it.  The circuit included everything – arms, back, legs, shoulders, abs and whatever else I got. 

I am starting to feel strong – I can see a little bit of actual muscle definition in my arms and shoulders and my calves are like slim, fake tanned boulders.  I force my husband to feel my muscles.  I have also been known to force random aquaintances, co-workers, other people at the gym and my new doctor’s nurse to feel my arm muscles.  When the nurse was taking my blood pressure last week, I flexed for her, until she asked me to stop so she could get an accurate reading.

Hello Monday

So, everyone’s back from the long holiday weekend.  I was supposed to be taking a vacation day today, but ending up doing some work anyway.  i have come to believe that “vacation days” are just a myth.  Back in the gym with Craig at 5 pm and what a joyous event it was!  I forgot to take a towel from home with me and I absolutely refuse to buy another one, so I just kept wiping my face and neck on my shirt – which is a great look for a 36 year old woman by the way.  As you may be aware in my previous posts, the two co-owners of the gym hijacked all of the white work-out towels without giving anyone any notice and instead when you showed up to your next work-out you were told you had to purchase one.  I don’t want to drive off that bridge again, so I won’t keep bringing it up – however, I would like to point out, if this mass towel kidnapping was in the name of saving the environment, then why are there still hordes of styrofoam cups being handed out full of smoothies?  Moving on.

Craig showed up and wasted no time getting right down to business.  In the first rotation: step-ups (15 on each leg), sit-ups (the old fashioned kind from high school gym class) and the big bar that you pull down to your chest and back up (It works your back – or so I was told).  As you can tell, already Craig has brought his A-game.  I on the other hand, decided to eat mexican food for lunch and a late lunch at that, so sort of sluggish and in constant fear of vomiting. The second rotation involves a heavy free weight bar, that stupid weighted medicine ball from side-to-side that I hate and the seated row.  Then, Craig says, “Alright, it’s party time!” and points me to the center aisle for walking lunges, down the length of the gym and back, three times.  Just an FYI – if Craig invites you to party, I would seriously refuse.  After breaking the news of the walking lunge, which was only the first horrendous item in this little torture trio, Craig added a shoulder exercise and hence this conversation:

Craig: “Okay, walking lunges and then shoulder claps” ( and he demonstrates with two free weights and basically, it involves a full range of motion from your arms at your sides to straight out to over your head and you clap the weights together over your head and then back through the range of motion to flat at your sides – that equals one.  Yeah, it’s kind of crappy and makes it hard to lift my arms high enough the next day to properly flat iron my hair. Thanks alot.)

Me: *stares back at him blankly, because I am still irritated about the impending walking lunge and don’t really care what comes next*

Craig: “Okay, here are the weights you’ll use for the claps”

Me: *giggling like a 12-year old boy* “You should really name that something different”

Craig: *ever the grown-up*  “For the shoulder claps”

I’m not sure why I don’t have the ability to behave like an adult and conduct myself in a grown-up and dignified manner at the gym.  I also managed to make a face and mock Craig while apparently he was standing four feet in front of me, butI couldn’t see him because I was looking down at the weight I was supposed to be lifting , and I just assumed – like every 4-year old on the planet – that if I couldn’t see him, then he couldn’t see or hear me.  Apparently I also loose my grip on reality at the gym.  I think it went with the towels.

When Left to My Own Devices….

I haven’t posted in a couple of days.  Not for lack of gym going, just a bit pre-occupied with the Thanksgiving holiday.  I did have a 6:30 am training session with Craig on Wednesday morning – during which Craig kept saying, “Just want to keep your muscles warmed up.  We’re taking it easy today.”  A couple of things here, first, Craig needs a dictionary, bceause he clearly doesn’t know what “taking it easy” means, and second, if you have to keep reminding us that you are “taking it easy” on us, because we are too short of breath to already know that – then I think we have what is a classical case of  “you are soooo not taking it easy on us the day before Thanksgiving!”  At any rate, I made it through and was a better man for it.  Well played Craig, well played.

Thanksgiving was lovely and we actually did not stuff ourselves this year or go back later in the evening and eat a second meal. I had wanted to volunteer at the Nashville Rescue Mission on Thanksgiving this year, but found out that you have to make that commitment pretty early – like in August.  All of the slots fill up very quickly during the holidays because the country music folks use it as a chance for some goodwill publicity, those who have been legally assigned community service get first crack at the open slots and well as those locals who are wanting a way to get their companies and/or schools a free write-up in all the local papers and on the evening news.  Don’t get me wrong, I think it is a great cause and serves a great need regardless of your reason for being there.  Whether the volunteers take away a blessing from their time spent at the mission is completely up to them, but all of those fed and warmed, on a particularly cold Thanksgiving Day, were certainly blessed and deservedly so. I cooked a nice meal and we actually only ate once yesterday (and yes, Craig, I know this is not proper nutrition or meal planning, but it was only for one day).

Now on to the more snarky events – which happened today, Friday, when I was left on my own at the gym to work-out.  Craig and his family have gone out of town to visit family and I want to stay motivated and force myself to go and complete a workout on my own.  It didn’t quite go as well as I had hoped, but I am going to base today on the premise that going to the gym and at least doing something for 60 minutes is better than laying on the couch watching the Law & Order marathon for 12 hours straight.  Will the overly well dressed and immaculately groomed detectives catch the bad guys? (Yes!).  Will thick-browed Asst. D.A. McCoy get a conviction against all odds? (Yes!)  Is this plausible? (No!)  Ahhh, good TV. 

Anyway, I went to the gym with the plan of doing 30 minutes of cardio on the treadmill and 30 minutes of weights. Since I work-out with Craig three times a week and have for a while now, I should be able to replicate the sets and rotations that we do.  I understand it enough to replicate it in detail for this blog, so I should be able to implement it at the gym.  No so much.  I did the 30 minutes on the treadmill and even that didn’t go completely without incident – although I am clearly not at fault for that event.  Let me explain.  There is this guy who works out at my gym and since I don’t know his real name – and will never introduce myself for reasons that are forthcoming – I just refer to him as Mr. Death Smells.  He tends to drop stink bombs at will wherever he is, whenever to urge strikes.  He will clear an entire section of the gym some days.  I truly believe this man lives on a diet of warm beer and boiled eggs – it is horrific.  On Wednesday morning, when I found myself behind him on a bike, I actually managed to get luck, as my tenure was only 2 minutes so I escaped with my olfactory nerves unharmed.  Today I was not so lucky when he climbed onto the eliptical machine in front of me about halfway through my cardio.  Seriously, it was bad, I think my eyelashes fell out.  In truth, if I were going to make a guess as to Mr. Death Smells situation, I would guess he is a faithful devotee of the Adkins diet and he has clearly not had carbs in a LONG time and is so far into ketosis that he has not only the meat sweats, but the uncontrollable meat farts.  I really am thinking of staging an intervention where we corner him in the daycare room and force him to consume a baked potato and french bread – clear that stink right up!

Then I moved to the weights and suddenly was struck with overwhelming amnesia.  I stared at the equipment and couldn’t manage to formulate a plan or a place to start or in one particular instance, how to use the machine.  I sort of walked from machine to machine – never sitting on it – for about 5 minutes.  Finally, I just decided to do one set of 15 reps on each machine until my 30 minutes were up or I had a complete meltdown and was forced to flee the gym in an overwhelming panic.  I had originally thought I would pair the machines like Craig does, so that I am working a combo that would have legs, abs and chest, then maybe a combo that works shoulders, back and quads and so on.  Instead, I just started at one end and did the machines in the order in which they were lined up across the gym floor.  Which means, all arms, then legs, then something I didn’t know how to use, then an oblique and a back and the ab machine that looks like a surgery chair and then the green-sherbet colored ball, which is more abs.  It was a total mess.  Here is what else I realized – when I work out with Craig, I listen to him tell me what we are going to do and then I follow him to a machine and just stand there until he sets the weight, adjusts the seat and/or pads, then slaps it with his hand and goes, “Okay, let’s go” – to be fair, I am usually running my mouth or making faces and issues complaints during the set-up time – so, I’m kind of busy myself.  I realized today, I don’t know how high/low the seats and pads should be – which led to me being trapped on one of the leg machines – more about that in a minute.  I also don’t know how much weight I lift on these machines – however, I did find out today, that it is not even close to what I would have thought it would be.  I think I nearly gave myself a hernia – twice.  Also, during my time of self-training, there were no sqauts or lunges or squatting while lunging.  I also never needed to find myself in the plank position and didn’t step-up on anything,  climb any mountains, or need to run on the stair climber as if being chased by large hungry wildlife.  Obviously Craig and I have different styles of training – not better or worse – just different. 

My most traumatic moment of my 60 minutes workout which ended up taking an hour and a half occured on one of the leg machines.  I don’t have a clue what it’s called and I think it works the back part of your legs – so hamstrings maybe?  You sit in it like a chair and there is a bar that is padded and you rest the lower part of your legs on this padded bar and then pull a handle and lower pads onto the top of your lega just above the knee, which holds your lega steady and then you bend your legs down at the knees – up and down and up and down.  When you finish, you pull the knob on the padded bar resting on the top of your legs and lift it up and then push the bar down with your legs and slide out.  I got stuck because you have to adjust the back of the seat and the lower leg bar so that your are sitting upright and your legs are positioned in the correct place on the pads.  I have no idea where Craig normally puts this and the person before me had both pieces fully extended, so I guessed…… incorrectly.  I got into the seat, I got my legs on the lower bar and I pushing the stablizing bar down onto the top of my legs (a bit too far) and then…. I was stuck, because it was all up to far and I couldn’t make my legs bend without breaking them.  Because I had pushed the top padded bar too far down on the top of my legs and I couldn’t move them down then I couldn’t release the knob to make it pop up and free me.  I struggled and became panicked and felt my face get flushed and I began to breathe quicker and then sort of shallow, because I felt trapped and claustrophic even though I am surrounded by no one and my entire upper body was free from restraint and the more I struggled, the less I got accomplished.  Finally, some very nice and very amused older gentleman came over and pushed the lower leg pad down and that gave me enough slack to be able to pull the release knob and free myself.  Now, I feel like I should somehow defend myself.  I’m not slow or stupid – in fact, it’s just the opposite – I am very bright and educated and successful in my career.  However, small issues like this always work against me.  What I also realized once I was freed, was that when we do this machine during our training sessions, Craig always holds down the lower leg bar for me to enter and exit the machine, so I had no idea that I could put so much torque on the top leg pads that I could essentially lock it down.  I think there should be a written warning clearly posted.  I think I should leave the weights alone until Monday morning when Craig returns.  Saturday is just a run, so I should be safe.