I just assumed I would die.
I imagined a small blurb in our local paper that would read “Local blogger mom drops dead near Lebanon Rd. High school band needs help with the concession stand this Friday night.”
It was a beautiful autumn morning. The air was crisp and cool. As I headed into the gym, a friend stopped her car, rolled down the window and gave me ‘that’ look. “We’re outside some today”, she said. Let me give you a piece of advice here. If your friend (who does the same exact class as you in an earlier hour) stops their car, rolls down their window and gives you ‘that’ look just get back in your car and go home. Pretend you sprained your ankle. Post some sad pictures on Facebook. SAVE YOURSELF!
But I chose to go inside anyway.
Wanna know why?
Because I’m a moron.
That’s why.
As we started our warm up, I began to envision what this ‘outside’ adventure might entail. Let me just say that had I walked out the back of the gym to find a semi truck attached to a large rope with Jen standing beside it telling me to ‘pull’, I would not have been surprised. Also, I would have at least attempted to do it. Because I’m a sheep in the gym. I have given over all control of my physical fitness to Jen. I do what she says and , while I may complain, I don’t question (out loud).
When the time to exit the building came, we were instructed to run around the building. Which, compared to pulling a big truck, seemed almost too easy.
In case I haven’t mentioned it before here’s a rundown of stuff I hate.
1. Mean people.
2. Jumping up and down
3. Running
Here’s why. Running is a humbling experience for a overweight person for lots of reasons. I’m not saying its not helpful. I’m not even saying we shouldn’t do it. But you do feel every pound of your body weight every time you foot hits the pavement. And there is just a lot of stuff bouncing around. I don’t know a delicate way to address that. We are a jiggly people. Gravity is a pain.
Nevertheless I ran.
(Ok I jog/walked)
I was quite humbled by two things. The first was my inability to catch my breath. I really felt like a year of working out had put me in better condition. And it has… but I’m still carrying around a lot that is excess. You try running around a building carrying 3 toddlers on your back and see how your pulmonary system reacts. As we entered the second round of this I began to believe that if God really loved me even half as much as He claimed to in his word that an oxygen mask would fall down from the sky to save me. It wasn’t just that I was breathing really hard. It was that no one else in my group seem to be winded in the least. I now hate all of them just so you know. The second thing was the fact that I finished a full 30 seconds (ok 2 minutes) behind all the others. And have I mentioned that they are lovely people? They all smiled encouragingly at me as I plodded my way to the finish line. I felt like I was competing in the chubby Olympics.
So three rounds later, it was over. I actually needed the cool down portion of class because my face had to have been approximately the color of a tomato engulfed in flames. Jen said “Good Job ladies!! and I said “I hate your kale eating face.” Ok I said that silently because I was trying hard not to cry. And I really do love Jen. But sometimes the sweat and tears answer before I do.
Was this my worst ever day at the gym?
Ya’ll it didn’t even crack the top 10.
If you know me then you know I have a somewhat difficult relationship with my two oldest step-children. And when I say ‘somewhat’, I mean ridiculously challenging, overwhelming ,want to scream and sometimes take a hostage. God is using them to teach me something but I haven’t figured it out yet. And very often I claim defeat in those relationships.
I brought that defeat with me to the gym. You see I woke up that morning at the end of my proverbial rope. I was feeling like a complete failure as a stepmom and as a wife . So when I found myself huffing and puffing as I ran around that parking lot, all that fail got wrapped into my inability to run fast and not breathe hard.
Both literally and metaphorically the only way past all these challenges is to put one foot in front of the other.
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