Blubber To Runner

*The title, for full effect, should be sung in the style of Chris Farley*

So, now that I’m home, my friends and I (Team Immediates, or TI for short) have been working out a lot together trying to get ourselves into shape for not only the Hangover Run on New Years Day, but also for a 1/2 marathon in April.  It’s really been great, because we all belong to the same gym (Retro Fitness) which allows you to work out at any location with their basic membership.  Since we all, for the most part, use different locations as our ‘home’ gym, we often travel to each others gyms so we can partner up.

Well, thank GOD for that because, when they don’t go to the gym with me, my anxiety goes through the roof.  Look, it’s one thing to go pretty much anywhere else and be heavy… but, to be the biggest dude at the gym is a WHOLE DIFFERENT LEVEL of discomfort.

At the gym, people stare at two types of members – the hot ones and the overweight ones.  One is because of the ultra-sexiness they possess while working out… and the other is because they’re hot.

*rimshot!*
*cymbal crash!*

🙂

But seriously, people ALWAYS look at the guys like me because they wanna see what the hell is going on when they try to work out… the pain after running only 5 minutes, the anguish in lifting 1/3rd of what they can… and they laugh with their spotter over my struggles.

Well, the other night my ‘trainer’… we’ll call him Todd… took it to a new level of crazy.

He pulled out an exercise ball.

Yeah, one of those.  And then he told me to get on it to do an exercise.  Seriously, I can’t make this up.  Todd’s way more knowledgeable on these types of things, as well as my best friend, and he took a lot of time to research the types of things myself – and TI – could do to get us in the best shape possible for these upcoming races.  So I went along with him and gave it a shot.

 In my head I looked like this ——————->

When in actuality it resembled this ————->

 But that’s OK… I did the 1st rep of that exercise like a Champ!

And then I lost my balance and rolled right off the ball… in the middle of the gym… and right on my ass.

First thing I do?  Look around to see all the “10’s” laughing at me for what just happened.  Then, to see all the gorilla juiceheads rolling on the floor hysterical because I just made a fool of myself.  And finally, the employees – the epitome of perfect health – just shaking their heads and counting the money I pay them each month in membership fees.

But therein lies the rub… that never happened.

In fact, none of that shit happens at the gym.  EVER.  No one cares one willy about me when I’m working out.  They’re too hung up on working out THEIR imperfections that THEY perceive when THEY look at themselves in the mirror.  Sure, are mine more obvious than many other peoples?  YES… absolutely.  I get that.  But what I always forget is that they are there for, essentially, the same reason – they wanna look better.

They want bigger muscles… they want tighter abs… they want better race times… they want stronger calves.  Whatever it is, they’re working at making themselves better in areas they view as needing improvement… which is exactly what I’m doing too.

So, what ever happened with the exercise ball?  I put myself back on it and did 9 more reps of the given exercise… which is when Todd remarked ‘Eh… that’s not much of an exercise’ and promptly scribbled it off of his TI Workout Plan that he drew up.  Sooooo, no more exercise ball – for now.  As for the other 16 exercises that are part of his ’90 Minutes Of Pain’?  I’ll keep you posted on how those go.

For now, I’m off for a light run… because even on my off days I gotta put Boots To Asses.