This past weekend, I was cataloging stuff I'd written in the past four years and came across this, and had to repost it, because this is the way I've been feeling lately.
The line I’d been standing in began to move pouring its way into the darkened room that had been cooled to a blissfully comfortable 65 degrees. I’d just finished a speed workout on the treadmill and was not looking forward to the next thirty minutes, but the class was a part of my training and I knew ‘phoning-it-in’ wouldn’t cut it.
I followed the people in front of me dropping my iPod, headphones and towel on the floor, marking my spot and headed for the wall to grab an exercise mat from the quickly diminishing pile.
Two times a week I find myself in this same room with these same people moaning and groaning, bending, pulsing, extending, flexing, relaxing, retracting molding and strengthening my core muscles. I hate it! Everything we do hurts, and it’s hard! It doesn’t matter how many times I attend the class, the instructor constantly changes the workout, meaning the class never gets easier.
I’ve found that the only way I can make it through the class without crying or getting up and quitting is to find an old guy and position my mat beside his. And my mantra thus becomes “when the old guy quits, you can quit.” I figure if the old dude can do it, I in my spry youthful vigor can cowboy up.
Last week, exhausted from the speedwork I had done previous to the class, I found my old guy, set my mat down, grit my teeth and steeled my way through the night’s workout that focused on the obliques and the erector spinae.
We opened by stretching our backs, so easy, and it felt so good. Then we moved on to our sides where we were told to bend our legs, lifting them sideways and then bend our torsos up to meet our legs. Within the first five reps I was feeling the undeniable searing pain of my obliques being torn up and my lower legs, already fatigued from my run, screamed in protest as I squeezed them together and lifted one, two, three, four…the relentless combinations continued. One after the other, we were on our backs, on our sides, standing up, holding dumbbells.
Halfway through the class, I snuck a peek over at the old guy, and he was still going, he was struggling, but he was still going.
In the past, when I’ve grown fatigued during a race, instead of dwelling on how tired I was or how much further I had to go, I’d focus on those passing me. The woman with the stroller, the overweight guy I’d seen walking back at mile six, the guy with the full rucksack and combat boots, the man that had to be older than my dad and I tell myself, I WILL NOT BE BEATEN BY THEM!
I frantically search around within my fatigued being and smush together the remaining crumbs of energy resolute to finish the race, cross the finish line, all the while yelling in my head, YOU WILL KEEP GOING ‘TIL YOUR LEGS FALL OFF, WHEN THE OLD DUDE QUITS, THEN YOU CAN QUIT! Those words have carried me across many a finish line, over countless hills, thru innumerable rain storms and sub-zero runs.
Last night, as I positioned my mat beside the designated ‘old guy’ I smiled at him, and he at me. He said to me, “you gotta be my motivation tonight, you’re young and full of energy, so if you don’t quit I won’t.”
Pressure old man, PRESSURE!
With ten minutes left in the class, I was close to tears from the discomfort in my core and the weariness of my legs from the squat workout I had done prior to class; the old man snuck a peek over at me and said, “hey young buck, if the old man can do it, you can do it!” I rolled my eyes, said a few choice words in my head and persevered those last few minutes.
At the end of the class as I gathered my iPod, towel, and headphones and replaced my mat the old guy approached me smiling, wiping sweat from his eyes, he said, “hey, young buck, I’ll see ya Wednesday.”
Thanks old guy, I will see ya Wednesday, and when you quit, I’ll quit, but it doesn’t look like that’ll happen anytime soon.