Butts and Guts

I brought new meaning to the name of this excercise class. (Zumba did not work out. It is a bad memory and a worse story. Don't ask. Zumba is dead to me.)

All ready in my new on-sale yoga pants, I showed up early to the gym only to confuse the instructor with a student by asking "Have you been to this class? Is it any good?" Technically, she is a student (an undergrad senior), but she also happened to be my drill sergent.

Unlike the previous week where there were dozens of eager Butts & Gutts exercisers (while I wasted my time at Zumba--I don't want to talk about it), it was just the two of us. We got to talking while waiting for the late-comers, and it turns out she's a Christian, attends the same church as us, recently got engaged and is going to be a teacher in CA! Wow.

Her fiance David shows up and we get started with a little warm up. We're moving to upbeat music, even to some Christian stuff. No matter how hard I try, I cannot get my arms and legs to be in sync with her arm and leg movements. It's always opposite. And as one of two students, it's a little hard to go unnoticed. Luckily, she's cool about my utter lack of coordination (die Zumba!), but she's pleased that I'm just moving my arms and legs, getting the blood to flow all over. What an understanding teacher!

After an easy series of jumping jacks, the music changed. The 40 minutes of non-stop sqwats, leg-lifts, and crunches in varying degrees of difficulty, position and miles per hour, left me red in the face and dying for water. Even though I knew the songs we were squatting to, I didn't think they would ever end!

We cooled down and stretched. David missed our beginning conversation, so we rehashed the newly discovered personal information as we put stuff away. Suddenly I feel really light-headed and dizzy, so I casually sit and try to be calm. Seconds later, I cut them off and say: "I'm sorry, but I think I'm going to vomit."

I did (in a trash can brought to me) three times. My poor new friends. Ana asks so sweetly as she's rubbing my sweat-soaked tee-shirt, "are you sick?" -"no-blurgh!" "are you pregnant?" -"no!"

Vomiting post-exercise is as much of a new high as it is a new low for me. High because it means I pushed hard and I'm proud of that. Low, well, because I'm just that out of shape.

I have so much respect for my brother who runs, my dad who plays basketball, and my sister-in-law who completed her first marathon!