Running In Public

I really wish I started this blog when I started FitCamp. (www.outdoorfitnesscamps.com/)

Let me tell you, when you go outside to run, you really make a decision that a) I have no dignity and b) I have no dignity. Okay, maybe that is a little melodramatic. I would me more accurate to say that you cannot have any issues with ego. You can only compete with yourself (which unfortunately explains my current sexlife). You have to be okay with your endurance moving closer to zero/being less inadequate. You have to be willing to take a beating one day a week, so not only the other six days of your week are better, but by not skipping a Saturday, you are not paying in triplicate two Saturdays away.

I am trying to think what I can tell you to catch you up to speed. I will first give you a run down of my training leading up to camp. I am 6'1", and I weigh 310 lbs. Before you gasp, even the doctor's office guesses at 240. I am a weight lifter, and do not fit any height-to-weight ratio charts. There is a certain pride in that, but one day it occured to me that there is no prize for being the strongest dead guy.

One day at my gym, I was looking over a cardio-class schedule, when someone said, "Are you going to come to spin class"? (cycling class to normal people) You know how people who say they are going to quit smoking always have a date to quit? They always made me think, "If you're going to quit, why not just quit"? So, even though I told that woman that was probably flirting with me and I missed it that I was not going in, at that moment, I felt like a smoker six weeks before New Year's Eve. So, I went and and found the right trainer. After that, I was doing cycling weekly. In that first class, I could only "participate" for about 15 minutes, and just pedal the other 45. (I feel that consistency and duration is more important than burning out. I proved that to myself years ago when I stopped trying to kill myself with weights.) By the fourth week, I was participating with the entire hour.

Since I really liked that instructor, I tried another of her classes, pilates. These are basically exercises for people that grew up dancing; women. This is where I learned to let go of my dignity in preparation for FitCamp. I got in there, and despite the fact that it was for flexibility and muscle development, I was breathing and sweating my ass off. When they said, "four deep, cleansing breaths," I would exchange those for "sixteen, conscious preserving pants." I am still trying to excel in this class, but a lifetime of "not being about that" is showing.

So, you have treadmill, spin class and pilates, on top of weightlifting. Once I got my wind, I thought I was ready to run in public.

No.

Very much... no.

I was only in good enough shape to actually start getting in shape.

That first week, it took me four days to not need the railing to walk down stairs, to not have to drop into seats (like toilet seats). Only then did I realize how out-of-shape I was. That, as bad of shape that I was in during high school, I would have to work for quite some time before I even got into that good of shape again.

You know, I talked with one of the trainers for two months before going. You see, people that are in shape do not understand people that are not. The best way I can describe it is like breathing inside a plastic bag with a pencil-sized hole in it. That first time, I lasted about ten minutes before everything became a walking exercise. Even then, the slightest exersion would make me pant like a dog, uncontrolably. Even I was amazed. We ran stadium stairs, threw a medicine ball around and ran after it, and brutal exercises. (Note: very smart exercises, because you only need to do them for about 30 seconds before you are gripping the earth, and crying to the sky.)

After that first workout, we all went to breakfast. Everybody was so careful to order the egg-white blah-blah. F THAT. There will be egg, there will be meat, there will be bread and there will be sugar anyday that I put my lungs and legs into traction. I remember very few details of that day except that the waitress had an accent.

So, if any of the ladies can call and talk to me in an accent, I'm sure I could remember enough to finish this blog.