Friday, January 4, 2008

Resolution #1

There are these two guys at work who go to the gym together every day and both had asked me multiple times this past fall to start going with them. Of course I wanted to -- it's been a good nine years since I've been in really excellent shape, but I remember what it feels like, to know that I could ask my body to exert itself for hours at a time, to jump, to spike, to dive for a ball, and it would react appropriately, often knowing what it is I wanted to do before I thought it.

Here's the thing, though: I'm a fundamentally lazy person and I *hate* (HATE!) going to the gym. It's boring, it hurts, it's no fun. Plus, the guy I'd be working out with, A, is known as a total hard ass when it comes to exercise (he makes his pick-up basketball team do suicides after their evening games). But I realized that this was exactly what I needed, someone to force me to go and push myself even when I didn't want to (which is basically every single day).

I started going to the gym with these two guys this week and I have to say, A's been great. We agreed that he would go relatively easy on me to start with, while I got back into a routine. He was the captain of his university's track team and is *excellent* at motivating me to push a little harder even when I'm ready to stop. I love it. I do best with this type of exercise -- going to the gym, running, doing a lot of conditioning -- when there's someone there telling me what to do every step of the way, and A is filling that role grandly.

I lost about 20 pounds in 2007 through no real effort on my part other then apparently being incredibly stressed and cutting waaay back on my consumption of take-out (it helps to be strapped for cash). The last time I weighed this little I had just finished my first semester playing for my college's volleyball team. My goal for this year is to maintain this weight and get back into the best shape of my life. And, if I have any say in the matter, end up looking something like this. Yeah, that should only take about a month. Aherm.

1 comment:

Mom&Dad said...

i, on the other hand, am going for the opposite kind of resolution