So on Tuesday after work I went down to the fitness studio to meet the God of Pain. I was ready to be impressed, after all he came highly recommended and he certainly seemed like a really nice man. He was interested in my goals, and didn’t even flinch when I told him that I’m planning to drag this arse up a mountain in a few months’ time, although he did nail me with a stare and tell me I was going to have to work hard. No shit, right? I can work hard.
He followed our meeting up with an email outlining his recommendations in terms of my training schedule…I’ve had to sign up to a minimum of four sessions a week but between you and me, I can tell he thinks four times a week is for fannies. That stare told me don’t even think about wimping out and doing the minimum…oh crap, it really is the end of life as I know it.
We’re going to work on stamina and strength. Or should I say I’m going to work on stamina and strength under his very close supervision…I’ve already sussed that the majority of his input comes from the stare, which he’s very good at. I think I actually want to cry.
So, let me tell you about my first training session. I’d wrestled my head into acceptance that it was going to have to talk my body into moving a bit, and I arrived complete with water bottle, and towel. Unfortunately, I’d taken my contact lenses out because it felt like the right thing to do, so the towel I grabbed on the way out turned out to be one of the ones I use for the dog. Anyway, despite a few questionable stains it did come off the clean washing pile so it was all good, if a little embarrassing. I was ready. And everyone was lovely so I felt very welcome.
So, the good news is I now know what the difference is between a fitness studio and a gym. A gym is somewhere you go to sweat, and a fitness studio is where you go to hurt. I got off to a bit of a ropey start, to be honest…the stretches were all going fine until we got to the one where you have to bend your knee and grab your foot from behind to stretch your quads – oh yes, I’ve so got this lingo – well, that’s all very well unless you’ve got a fat leg with a rogue foot that refuses to be caught.
I had about three attempts, in fact I must’ve looked like I was trying to fucking Riverdance as I waved my leg around and desperately grabbed in the general direction of my foot whilst balancing on the other leg. By some miracle I managed to hook my finger down the back of my trainer and pull my leg up so it was a minor drama and I don’t think anyone noticed. Well, except the God of Pain, who notices everything.
The session was called Body Blast, which was all about building core strength. I haven’t got too much of that so I knew it was going to hurt. Call me Mystic Meg if you must, but I wasn’t wrong. Let me paint a picture of exactly what I demanded from this knackered fat old body. Jog-on-the spot and then get down on a yoga mat to do the plank (ouch), stand up and do some lunges, get down again and do some press-ups (ouch), get up again and do some star jumps, get down again and do some side-planks (ouch), get up again and do some squats, get down again and do some bum stuff (I’d started to lose cognitive thought at this point so can’t remember what they were called) get up again and have another jog, get down again and do some arm stuff (I’m actually dying by now so didn’t care what they were called).
That all took about twenty minutes, and I’ve never been as relieved to hear a klaxon in my whole life. Except he then made us do it again. And then again. Three fucking times.
The bit I found the hardest was all the getting up and down, you know? It’s hard enough, still, to haul this body out of a chair, never mind getting down to ground level. I can’t remember the last time my knees saw that much action, I mean come on, I’m a single girl…not much call to get down on all fours in my life, wink wink. My knees are very pissed off today but to honest they just need to join the chuffing queue.
I couldn’t help looking at my yoga mat as I punch-drunkenly jogged on the spot towards the end of the hour in a kind of out-of-body experience way, and I noticed how the memory foam retains the shape of your body for a while after you get up. Well, mine did anyway. I also couldn’t help thinking that all that was missing was a chalk outline to confirm that this was in fact a crime scene. The God of Pain was attempting to murder me and what’s more, I was paying him to do so.
But you know what? I survived it. And by the end, when we did the cool down I was astonished to discover that I still had the power of movement and speech. Who knew!
