I’m Falling Apart

Hi, it’s been too long but I’m thinking of giving this a go again. I’m retired and recuperating from knee surgery at the moment. I’m targeting what’s called Sunrise Cycle and trying to think of nicknames for all the characters that inhabit my world nowadays. Hope you’re doing great!

Exercise Makes You Smart (Gym PSA)

If You Don’t Write About Going to the Gym… Did You Really Go?

Ghost whispers across various electronic mediums, "If you don’t write about going to the gym… did you really go?"

I have no time for her metaphysical bullshit. Ghost's question is similar to, "If Helen Keller fell in the woods, would there be a sound?" and easy to answer in both cases. The answer is no.

I'm pondering far greater mysteries at the moment, like why are "they" constructing a portal into the gym next to my "safe space"?

Am I not giving enough? Am I to exercise even MORE?! I suspect my wife's hand in this, it has her 'touch' all over it. Its eerie and would be alarming except LT is distracting me from my deep, deep thoughts with further commands, "pick it UP!"

She's amusing herself by constructing imaginary hills for us to ascend, "Imagine (and you can tell she doesn't believe for a second that we can imagine the awesome hill she's envisioning filled with unicorns and smurfs) a series of medium hills that are all ... mediumy and well medium is what I'm going with!"

She grins wildly at us, daring us not to believe that medium exists.

On my medium hill of mediumness I'm being ridden down by enraged smurfs riding the backs of apoplectic unicorns all because I might have eaten a smurf. I find it difficult to refute their claims given the evidence.

I pick up my cadence hoping I don't puke up smurf all over the bike and grossing out the class. I'm sorry about the stupid smurf but I'm not about to be impaled by Rainbow Unicorn.

My mind drifts to sadder things. LT has decided to further her experiments on the human body by moving the spin class into a racketball court, something about wanting us to get closer to the circle of hell she calls her spin home, "You'll find it more immersive." No more airy basketball court, no more smurfs (don't worry, I'll have hunted them to extinction by then) just pandemonium.

I grin in appreciation. How can you not adore LT? I honestly can't wait to experience this class (by next Friday she'll have all the kinks worked out I'm sure!).

Envision five or six adults pounding pedals, music blaring, heat from a contained room, reverb from acoustically unforgiving walls, shouted commands mixing in with previously shouted commands ...

Chaos.

This should be a blast!!!

And class is over, drat. I check my stats from this app called HeartWatch.

You can clearly see my Smurfy Hills of Mediumness and the gaps in the heart rate where LT tried to kill me ...

It's Friday and we all know what's fun thanks to Kristin Ritter!!! Enjoy your weekend!

The Dark Side of The Gym

Someone forwarded me an email sent to LT - I was SHOCKED this sort of backstabbing went on in our peaceful gym.

From: "Mole,The"
Date: Friday, April 19, 2019 at 9:01 AM
To: "LT"
Cc: [redacted], [redacted], [redacted]
Subject: Today's Spin Class

LT,

I’m using a double-blind app I bought from Kmart to mask my identity since this email puts my very life at risk! Call me ‘The Mole.’

We were all devastated that you weren’t at Spin today and found ourselves under Other Trainer's tender (though slightly sadistic) mercies. She worked us hard which brings me to the point of this missive.

After class [redacted], [redacted] and [redacted] were quite vocal in saying how hard that class was, how tired and thoroughly spent they were. 

Sadly, the implication is clear, isn’t it?

They don’t feel you’re pushing them hard enough at Friday’s spin and desperately need you to bring them to the next level of pain and suffering. TURN IT UP!

For the record, I’m good and don’t need any pushing, seriously, couldn’t be happier!

Sincerely,

Bi… er The Mole.

Let's Watch!

SPIN Damn Your Eyes!

I figured I was in trouble when LT opened with, "Let's start with a light warm up... say, 'yes'"

Reenactment 

We've started with only four bikes but people keep coming in until finally the last dude kicks LT off her bike. Ghost wafted in, brows furrowed at the class size and got straight to it. Maybe next time I'll get the full Ghost experience but I was glad to see her. This is bad news since LT can completely focus on inflicting elevated heart rates and increased whining without being distracted by actually spinning.

Our collective suffering was unspeakable and I shall never speak of it again. All I can remember is saying "yes" and what might be best described as elfish giggling.

It was weird and fun and LT should consider remaining off the bike and marching around like a demonic elf drill sergeant more often. She looked like she was having fun.

I'm also considering "Throw Back Thursdays" where we all come to the gym in fantastic 70s workout attire!

Say 'Yes'

PS: I don't workout on Thursdays...

Wednesday

I'm starting to get back on track after I (barely) survived my wife's attempt to murder me last weekend. She tried doing it using a 5K. I ended up doing 6.8 miles throughout the day and that ended up being pretty tough on my knee.

So I took Monday "off" from the gym - my knee is a tricky thing and when it first went bad it hurt so much I literally couldn't sleep. A friend described it best, "The pain is like a toothache" endless. Now that I'm getting gel injected into it I can sleep and I'm not in much pain (I limp) which I'm beginning to view more as a feature, like Ahab.

I might be hypersensitive to it but if I'm going to really succeed at taking care of myself I'm going to have to find balance between the parts of my body that still sorta work and the parts that are, sigh, in decline like my very arthritic knee.

My path will be what my wife described as, "Finding the balance... and coffee."

The Feng-shui of exercise routines.

I do LT's upper body thing today and tried to pick up the pace with pretty good success, my (#deep) thought being a higher heart rate will help with fat reduction.

Once done I decide LT simply must see my HR chart. She says, "This makes my heart happy."

Spin on Friday.

Ghost

Back on the spinner and Ghost is a no show - again! She's wise to avoid me in these situations, I'll suck up all her oxygen, my well honed machine of a body craves more air, more pain, more spin and more beer to deal with the pain of being ... me. Ghost frequently whispers faint excuses to me through electronic media...

"I blew my knee out..."

"I knocked over a gas station and couldn't make bail..."

"I don't like you..."

LT is amusing herself by putting us through something called a "pyramid." Its intervals with the work time going from 20 to 40 to 60 seconds and then back down. The rest interval remaining pretty much the same unless you ask LT about her dog or something else I couldn't make out in the crappy gym acoustics.

Sweaty dude to my right, who needs to be named, blows the dog question.

LT's brow furrows, her voice thundering like an enraged Wizard of Oz, "OK, pick it up, let's go!" cutting short the rest interval.

I want to puke, I glance across the basketball court judging if I can make it to the trash can. It's so far, so very far. I keep up the sprint instead. If I'm going to puke then it might as well be EPIC! I swig more water adding fuel to the fire. I take small solace knowing how disappointed Ghost would be not seeing me puking all over the bike. Too bad Ghost.

Maybe I'll die instead, yeah that's what's needed in these situations. OK too dramatic, passing out is an option. I glance up and LT is doing stretches at an easy cadence.

It's over?

Yep.

Too bad.

Oh, and I'm starting to lose weight despite my evil ways.