Turn the Page...

I realize that I'm completely insane for waking at 3:45 am, but I could honestly go to bed at 7pm every night if the little people that live with me would LET ME, but since that isn't an option I watch the clock and retire by 8:30. Do I jump outta bed and shout Hey I wanna go sweat for an hour and rush home to shower and finish getting the kids ready for school so I can work/clean/care for/shop/shuttle/forget to eat lunch I'm so busy the rest of the day?...however, when my eyes pop open, I get up if it's appropriate timing, and I do consider 3:45 appropriate.

However, the reward I get, comes after I arrive to my spin class (which is currently my favorite for my schedule-but I try to squeeze in a variety of classes). My reward is in the music, mostly. There is nothing like visions of my neighboring spinner "Mr. Bucky", one of our town's finest, cycling at full speed to some Soulja Boy, Metallica, AC/DC or Flo Rida. I can't help but wonder what he's thinking, is he listening to this music, does he like it? Cause I'm lovin' it!

Today we had a real treat. New music to jam to while spinning as fast as we can on our imaginary route to nowhere. It had a mix to some crazy hair band groups that used to be plastered to my closet door, back in the day. Groups like Guns N Roses, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, Extreme and maybe even some Poinson. We were rockin' and rollin' I tell ya. Then it happened. Bob Seger came on. It was the real Bob Seger, not an imitation jingle singer impersonating him like some exercise music is. Turn the Page poured from the Spin Room at The Gym and I heard voices. Not the kind inside my head this time but grown men, singing the lyrics to this song, and it was awesome...not necessarily the singing, just the fact we were all exhausted, we were all sweaty and stinky and we had survived the hour of spin with "The Landlord".

"The Landlord" actually owns the gym and she teaches classes too, so I have to be careful not to give her dirty looks like I do many of my other instructors. She might sentence me to 30 laps or some cruel and unusual punishment-like 2 hrs w/Lady F or turn Bee loose on me (shutter). Gotta go rest up for another spin class in the morning, then I'm off to sub at school. Let us pray.

a cussin'...

I'm just gonna be honest...certain inappropriate words enter my brain at random and it usually occurs when I'm trying to lift weights at 5 in the morning. But I do my best to hold them in my brain, grit my teeth, squeeze my 6 lb dumbbells and just hope that no one can read them off my lips should they accidentally take flight from the old noggin. Class begins at 5:15am, and it is usually packed out for the hour long class. I know most of the people in there and no one cares if you have on make up or if you have a unibrow (someone should have told me about that but I took care of it). 

I had been sweating for hours it seemed when I found myself pressing my teeth together, half way wanting to bite my tongue so that the sight of dripping blood might, just might get me out of class early. I felt sure that it should be within that last ten minutes of class but one look at the clock and I realized, I wasn't even half way there. DERN ! "Bee" caught me and said, "Val, are you watching the clock?" and I responded in my head, "Hellz-to-da-yea, I wanna make it out alive woman!" But I only verbally spoke "Yes, I am!" and besides, some instructors can't tell time and will run over their allotted time because they don't see tears yet....so lots of times, I'll make an obvious turn around to the clock to draw their attention to it, so they realize they are cutting it close. That happens to not be the case this time. About the time, I had the Elvis lip where one side of the top corner of your mouth involuntarily draws upward, I heard someone shout out "$h**" and drop their weights...it may have been Guest Blogger Brett, but it could have been someone else that was reading my mind...I almost laughed out loud though.

Mr friend "Kitten" came to rescue. When she thought we were wrapping up the 2,354 reps of abs, she jerked her stuff up and started putting her things away. I followed suit. They were down to their last 2 minutes anyway and I really needed to get home and get ready for work. Now, I must endure spin class in the wee hours of the morning and hope the Aleve will keep me moving over the next couple of days. I have been so busy I've been a blog neglector I guess, but hopefully I'll be back on track soon.

Thanks a lot marathon runners!

Back to Lady F's class today...it was a doozie!

Number 1-Lady F still has no concept of time. The class is supposed to last 45 minutes but she bullies us makes us work way past that. The sad thing is, she makes out the schedule so there's no excuse...she knows we are supposed to be set free only have to endure the pain for 45 minutes! I thought maybe her vision was bad and couldn't see the clock or maybe she got carried away, but I SAW THE LADY LOOKING AT THE TIME when we reached 46 minutes and she then said, "Well, 45 minutes sounded good on paper, didn't it?" and she snarled at one of the marathon runners...and then it made sense. We were being punished because half the class ran a marathon (or half marathon-anything over a quarter mile is a marathon to me) over the weekend and she wanted to break them in two. Their poor legs were already sore and Lady F cackled out "add some power!!" And she forced our dilapidated frames to move through lunge after lunge after lunge...and I'm thinking, hey, why should I be punished 'cause the runners have been skipping class to train for some marathon? I can't run a mile!

But the runners stayed, and took their beating. Lady F smiled at them as if she were rubbing their noses in the mess they've created for us all. They did not smile back. I was scared. I was looking for ways to cheat my way through til the end of class so got water, I blotted the sweat with my towel, back on the step for a count of 10 and whoops, I need water again...but that can only get you so far. Lady F will catch on soon and make us stay another 5 so I try to keep up.

I'm wondering if Lady F can count past 10 because I constantly hear "10 more!" and she just does it over and over and over...in my book, 10 x 10 is 100, not 10 Lady! But there's no use in arguing, I try not to even look at her for fear she'll think I have an ounce of strength left and give me 10 more.

So in my head, I sing Miranda Lambert over and over and I think of all the math tutoring Lady F needs and every time I hear her try to count past 10 but only revert back to 1, I simply say "Bless her heart" over and over. Hopefully the marathon runners made it through, I got selfish at the end and couldn't even look over at anyone else, I was in survival mode. Although I am proud of the runners, I have to say THANKS A LOT! I do blame you for the Lady's behavior today! Now, let me have some warning before you all start skipping class again since we all have to pay the price!

The Legendary "Lance Armstrong"

Another great one from Guest Blogger Brett...I will say, a full hour of spin is tough to handle but after that first time-it's much easier. I actually love spin now. The Gym where we go actually offers a 30 min beginner spin now which would have been perfect for Guest Blogger Brett, back in the day, lol.

"...so anyway, I have once again ventured into another realm of a type of morning exercise to challenge my muscle development and increase my cardiovascular training. Has any foolish person, besides myself, ventured into a "spin class"?

It is, exactly as the name would lead you to believe, an hour long, cardio workout that takes place entirely on a stationary bike. Let me first describe the aforementioned bike; it isn't the type you would buy at Wal-Mart, it is solid and everything about it suggests that no expense was spared in its construction. A frame designed and constructed so strongly of some time of alloy metal that a heifer could sit on it and it wouldn't give, the pedals have leather insertions that look like a Roman sandal to keep the foot in place at all times, and the balance of this thing is amazing you couldn't flip it over if you tried and if you did try and it did flip, then you are simply a moron anyway. My being the curious type, and looking for a reason not to do the class, checked this bike out from top to bottom, and well, I found nothing that would give me any reason not to participate, therefore as class was about to begin, and I had already been spotted and couldn't leave, I sat on my little jewel of a bike, "'ol number 10" I will refer to it as for that is the number on the side of my sweet ride. I adjusted the handle bars to my liking and raised the seat to its proper level, because apparently a midget had been on it the previous day. I adjusted the feet straps, inserted my foot into each peddle, said a prayer, then class began.

In all my preparation I didn't check one thing about the bike, which is why I stated earlier "suggests no expense was spared", the seat. Now listen I am still a young guy in all reality, but when I had my first bike we had the banana seat, it was long, it was wide and it was about the size of the small church pews that are always located near the back door in every good church. However, in today's world, for whatever reason, the seats are just this side of a sewing thimble or my arse is wide as a door (and in all honesty a combination of both is most likely the reality of it). I sat on the dumb thing and it felt like a bee just stung me right in the crack. "Oh my God" I thought "this is miserable", but class had already begun and no way would I leave and confirm, for a room full of women and one another dude, their already preconceived notion that I was a wimp, so I stuck it out. The class itself was a good exercise routine, lots of standing and sitting as we pedaled, of course with every stand meant the dreaded sit followed closely behind. The sit was miserable; my legs would go numb, except from the area of about the navel underneath to the top of my butt crack on the backside, now that area screamed in agony with every sit. I found myself wishing someone would cut my nipple off to take my mind off of the pain of "the land down under". It never happened! I looked around the room, people working hard, people cutting up with those beside them, people rocking to the awesome music that was playing as we spun, etc.

However, 'ol number 10 and I weren't getting along so well, with every sit brought a new sting, and with every sting brought joy and adulation to 'ol number 10, I felt. At some point the instructor, and yes you guys know her refer to "the devil in blue spandex" aka "Bee" made a decision that spinning itself just wasn't enough. Therefore we would spin sitting for a count then stand for a count, sitting for a count stand for a count, and so on and so forth. For me it was more like: sitting through hell standing for Heaven, sitting through hell standing for Heaven, I think you get the picture. We did that for awhile and then we sat again; as we sat it was time to get a little arm exercise apparently. So we put our hands well in front of us on the handlebars, like the ones you see in the Tour de France or something, and started to do push ups as we sat, which means leaning way forward, then pushing back up straight, all in the sitting position. Well, this is where they lost me, because every lean forward and every push back was, well, how do you say it? Okay, forgive me here if what I am about to say is offensive and/or lacking in gentlemanly qualities, if it is then please bare with me in my folly; each "bike push up" was plain and simple a "nut crusher"!!!! I did a total of two "nut crushers", and well that was all I had to offer, I hopped off my bike, tip toed to the locker room, puked blood, laid in the floor with a stomach ache, called in sick, walked like Chester from Gunsmoke, and sung like the tenor Luciano Pavarotti the remainder of the day................."No soup for Jerry Seinfeld, No spin class for me"

Does anyone know if they need a new guy to do the voice for Mickey Mouse?"

~Guest Blogger Brett~

Lucifer

So this is the male version of what goes down during an aerobics class that he (Guest Blogger Brett) and I, participate in down at the gym. He actually wrote this long before I wrote mine and you can see-we have similar views...he was kind enough to be a guest blogger and share his first experience with instructor Bee. You've read about her here on several occasions. But we love you Bee. If I don't say that she'll literally kill us at the next class-which Guest Blogger Brett has already come up w/an excuse to miss. He wants to live long enough to run the Mercedes this weekend. We have big fun at 5 in the morning...nothing like a room packed full of people, burning some calories before work.

I walked into the 5:15 Step 'n Sculpt class as it is so deceivingly referred as. I introduced myself to the instructor, a very, tone attractive lady who introduced herself as "Bee". Bee told me what to do in order to set up my station and which weights I would need. Bee said, and I quote “I am not trying to insult you, but get the 5 lbs dumbbells for starters”, so I took her advice into consideration and grabbed the 10 pounders (2nd mistake of the morning, the first was walking into the class, I would later find out), and we are off………..

We began with a “simple” warm up. We started with some stepping exercises, side to side, grapevine, step/tap, etc. At this point I am not sure what is going on but it appears I am stepping on beats 1 and 3 and everyone else is stepping to 2 and 4, arrogantly I thought “white women have no rhythm and/or concept of staying to the beat” OOOHHH YEEAAHHH! Did I mention I am the only dude in the class? So warm up is over and we are into the workout, a light weight, high repetition workout, I have come to realize. We do lunges, squats, steps, for the legs right out of the gate, and after 5 minutes I am breathing quite heavily, and feel a twitch in my hamstrings (or hammies as we gym rats refer to them), but I am doing okay, and thought this will be a welcomed relief to my normally strenuous workout.


Next comes chest and arms, we begin chest presses with the weights and butterflies, after a few minutes I develop a case of shaky arm, I am starting to break a good sweat, now my legs and arms are twitching. “Better work out than I anticipated” I thought to myself. “Now back to legs” Bee says. “What! I thought we had already done that” I murmured under my panting breath. So, my arms are shaky, my legs are tired, and we are still working on them. I noticed a bifurcated tail start to appear from the lower back of the seemingly sweet Bee. I am now hurting, breathing heavily, sweating more, and wishing I was home.

“Biceps” says Lucifer, uuughhh Bee I mean. We start a bicep workout using those stupid dumbbells again. I pick up the 10 pounders and fall into cadence. “God, help me” up and down, up and down, up and down! I am struggling, to say it mildly! “Okay, I should have went with the 5 pounders” I thought to myself, geez, I am even panting when I think now! At my last count we did 313 repetitions (or reps as Bee called them), of bicep curls, I am spent!!!! I am now in agony, breathing is beyond heavy, profusely sweating, and wishing it was 6:15 (the end of class).


“Shoulders” Bee screams, as her eyes turn to red, her demonic horns begin to appear, and her bifurcated tail sways back and forth to the beat of the “club” rendition of the Commodores “Brick House”. I now loathe Bee! My delusional mind concludes there is a special place in Hell for Bee, and she couldn’t get there quick enough as far as I am concerned and if she needs a ride there, then jump in shotgun with me for a ride on the express, sweetheart, and I will open the door for you on arrival. “Back” Bee roars, with her demonic voice, and her little female minions do as instructed. At this point, I am praying for death, sweated out, and contemplating striking Bee in the back of the head with the dumbbell, if only I could lift it!

Finally, Bee the Ghoul, as I now call her, said “good job guys, have a wonderful day” I lay there on the cool floor praying for Rapture or some form of projectile vomit to relieve my fatigued body. I caught my breath, and slowly rose to a sitting position, Bee came over to me, and offered me a hand to get me on my feet. I, dejectedly, accepted, I had no choice really; I knew I couldn’t do it on my own at that point. She encouragingly patted me on the back and sweetly said “Good job, Brett!” and then asked “See you on Friday morning?” I looked at her angelic face, “when did that happen” I thought, and I said to Bee the Ghoul, “Yeah, well, don’t count on it Legion. I’ll not submit myself to your forces of evil, and your eccentric circles of Hell, you call a workout anymore!!!!” I put up my equipment away as any good Christian would do, I limped to the locker room, stood under the tepid water of the shower, and cried like the day I was born.

~Guest Blogger Brett~

**disclaimer**

In no way am I to be punished for Brett's point of view when I go back to The Gym. I would never call an instructor Lucifer-though most of them are demonic and feed on the common man's pain and agony. In fact, I credit the Evil Instructors for making me a kinder person each day. If you can survive a full hour of one of these classes-it's hard NOT to feel good. And if I see one of the other participants on the street, we only share a nod and half grin because "The first rule of Fight Club is..." well, you get it...



Stay tuned for Guest Blogger Brett's take on the spin class!

The Body Snatcher

Okay, I'm all for five a.m. workouts, loud music pumping through my body, even an occasional hoopin' and hollerin' from folks. However, I'm not a smiler. I don't smile until I drop the kids off at school around 7:30 every morning. So when I walk in spin class and see the instructor wearing her pearly white smile, I was forced to half-heartedly grin and hop on my bike.

I look at this lady, we'll call her "Bee" and she's all chipper, and you can tell she can't wait to burn some calories. Me either! As the class progressed closer to the hour's end, my bad thoughts started kicking in, just as they do in every class I take. I start off good, with happy and exicited to be there thoughts and when things start to get tough, the dark side kicks in.

The lights were off so Bee didn't see the evil looks I was shooting her way as she told us to turn up the resistance for the 20th time. Soon I detached, and told myself an old parable that I made up as I went along. You see, Bee used to be my only instructor. I grew up doing step on her hand made wooden steps at various places she would rent around town. Her wooden steps kept me skinny so I could eat 3 tacos, a quarter pounder w/cheese, or anything else I wanted during those teen-early twenties years.

When I decided to have kids, Bee turned on me. Right when I was just about in the skin I wanted to wear, I needed to take a break from her, the break was 10 years long. While I was out w/my children, playing Mommy, she snatched up the body I was gonna choose. Oh sure, she had dozens of kids by then and didn't take breaks from working out but here I am 10 years later, and I want that body back!

I realized I was inappropriately staring so I closed my eyes and rode my bike at full speed. She was singing Brick House by now over her mic and I enjoyed the karaoke impromptu which brought me back to reality. I left class, drenched in sweat and before I could get out the door, Bee said, "Now be nice Val!" ... how did she know I was talking about her in my head!!??!! Scary, I'll have to watch what I think around her...and I AM gonna get that body back Bee! Wait and see!

The White Sock Memo

Okay, I've officially lost it. I got up, went to spin class at five in the morning, came home to a circus! Kids were crazy, husband wasn't happy because the kids were crazy. I had just enough time to put on dry clothes and load the kids up for school. Just as I pulled into the school parking lot, they admitted they had eaten a handful of sugar each! Fabulous, but that was no longer my problem, we were at school now and the teachers are gonna kill me. I kept driving after I dropped them and went back to the gym!

I got on the crossramp for a few minutes and noticed everyone going for the aerobics room. What was going on? PILATES, I've been wanting to try this so I go in, and I see The Runners. I immediately ask if I can do Pilates and they were evil enough to tell me YES. So I stayed.

Everyone started pulling off their shoes and I'm thinking, do mine even match? Obviously these people do not walk around on the patio, out to feed the dogs or check the mail in their socks like me. I had on off white, casual/dress socks, not even close to bright white fresh from the pack active socks like EVERY SINGLE OTHER PERSON HAD ON...apparently I didn't get the memo. But I wasn't gonna let a little thing like stained socks dishearten my desire. I figured I'd manage or cheat through since it was described to me as lots of breathing and core strengthening and stretching. I'm great at heavy breathing and need to stretch since Lady F hurt me yesterday but the WARNING flag was the core strengthening description. I have a core, I have a LOTTA core. And then the biggest warning flag of all...in walks Lady F. TO TAKE THE CLASS. Crap. I can't do this.

But I act like I can and I made it through the 45 minutes without injury. But I assure you, I am not strong enough for Pilates. It was like taking those last few exercises from Lady F's class, the ones I totally cheat on, and doing a whole class on just those exercises I can't do. The skinny girls have less weight to hold up but when big gurls like me try to hold themselves up and do ssssslllllllooooooowwwwww push ups, we get shaky, we get off balance, and instead of 10 we do 2. So as you can see, the least of my worries was my socks. I'll stick with my spin and my aerobics until I shed about 10 lbs at least.

Some thug cussin'

Today I had an unexpected off day from work, so I went to my new favorite place, The Gym. I knew Lady F was teaching and even though I've not had her step class in a couple of weeks, I had hoped that the spin and Zumba I've been doing would be enough to carry me through this one. I was wrong.

The schedule said 45 minutes and I knew it was a lie gonna last longer, but I thought surely I can make it through. I've had no energy the last few days due to PMS my hectic schedule, even Zumba left me sore this week! So even though I really wanted to go back home and crawl back into bed, I continued to drive after dropping off the kids. Now, I must find motivation...I needed some Thug Cussin'...so I popped in some  50 Cent and after he finished cussin' me out, I felt better...jajajaja-G Unit! Now.....where's she at? I ain't skerred!

I walked in, barely recognizing people...I'm out of contacts and had to leave my glasses in the car, they would just fog up from the multitude of sweat that was about to pour from my flesh. I hoped I could balance without them and not trip on my step. I saunter in, she's already getting her mic on. I smile innocently, as if I've not written horrible things about her in the past and say, "You're not gonna kill us are you?" and without hesitation she snaps with a demonic, "I'm gonna try!" Her pupils darted straight thru my skull and I took my place in the back, as far away from her as I could get. Oh snap! What have I done...

Some of the ladies in that class are training for Mercedes Marathon chickened out and are probably glad they ran a few hundred miles instead of walking thru those doors. They are reserving their injuries for after the race, I suppose and I completely understand.

I did what I could throughout class, I heard the words "Now 8 repeaters!!" too many times to be quite honest. I did the easier ones so I could cheat on the hard ones! I said nothing to anyone when I left. I put my things away, and went out to my car for my reward....

Yes, this time of the month, Hershey's 100 calorie packs of chocolate goodness, get me through. I assume the hundreds of calories I burned will sufficiently cover this. Now, up for a 5:15 am spin class in the morning...if the old bones can move that is!