I felt a bit twitchy when I walked through the doors of the Kingdom of Pain yesterday because I knew that straight after Fat Furnace, somewhere around the point where I’d worn myself out doing two circuits of kettle bells and planks and power bags and reverse lunges, I was going to have to strut my stuff in front of a very solemn God of Pain who would be holding a clipboard and scrutinising my every move…my first assessment.
In our fitness studio there’s a bit of a colour vibe going on, and the colour of the T-shirt you get to wear indicates what level of torture you’re going to be subjected to when you walk into a fat furnace class. It tells people how fit you are, sort of like the belt system in martial arts, right? As a rookie, you wear one of your own T-shirts which is sort of couch-potato-in-training status. But once God of Pain thinks you’ve practised enough and got your technique down, you get formally assessed and providing he’s happy with what you do you’re awarded your first colour…last night, I got mine.
After four months of blood sweat and tears I’ve earned my yellow T-shirt. I’m officially a citreenie, and I shall wear my T-shirt with pride. It feels awesome, you know? Four months ago I didn’t know how I was going to survive my first week, and a T-shirt of any colour looked way out of reach…they were for proper people who deserved to be there and didn’t risk conking out every time they broke a sweat. But look at me, I’m one of them now…one of the gang.
You might have seen the picture on Facebook…admittedly it’s not the most flattering photo of me that you’ll ever see, with my purple cheeks and sweaty hair plastered to my face but I can pretty much guarantee that you’re not likely to spot a happier girl anywhere. It’s a flaw in God of Pain’s ritual, making you pose for a post-assessment photo in your new T-shirt when you’ve just done an hour of circuit training, but right at that moment I didn’t really care. Even the fact that he was going to tag me on social media and share my hot sweaty jubilation with the world wide web didn’t faze me…I’m a citreenie after all, and we’re well hard.
It’s funny, as I drove home dressed in yellow, my boy rang to see how I’d gone on. After I’d shared my news and had a giddy two minutes, he moved on to more important matters like when are you home and what’s for supper? before uttering those immortal words do you fancy a Chinese? and the funniest thing happened…I opened my mouth to say yes, and no came out. There’s a variation on a theme, right?
Saying no to Chinese food kills me…it’s one of my hardest things. I love it and to be fair I do still eat it, but I have to budget for it. And yesterday I hadn’t. Normally if an unexpected Chinese food opportunity presented itself I’d spend a good while doing a bit of creative accounting to try and find a way to make it fit, but before I had chance to start doing my sums, the word no sprang out of my mouth like it had the hounds of hell on its tail.
No dodgy accounting here…I’m a citreenie, but I can’t rest on my laurels, you know? Fire-opal I’m coming to get ya 🙂
