Trainercide-no court would convict me!

Today I got my butt kicked.

Let's start from the beginning. I did what Chris asked me. I worked out this morning for 30 minutes. I did crunches, steps and curls while walking on the treadmill in between each set. I got sweaty but it was ok. I failed to bring the user manual for the Bowflex but only because I have the attention span of a gnat and forgot it on my desk!

I had good conversations with Chris and Steve about our little arrangement and my goal. They are both following this blog now so you can see them for yourselves.

Steve read the blog for the first time and had a pretty good laugh. He mentioned that it was interesting to get inside the head of someone trying to do what I'm trying to do and hear what it was like for the "trainee" (victim).

Chris weighed me and I have to say I can already tell a difference. I know I've lost something. I still don't know what my weight is and I don't want to know the numbers but I felt pretty good about an apparent loss. Even Chris admitted that he could tell by looking at me, something positive was going on.

So far, so good.

And THEN, I worked out with Chris.

Please excuse me for what I'm about to say. Holy %$#%! What a complete &^%$#@! I wanted to kill that #$&^%$ *&!!!@#! And as for Steve...you too!!

They double teamed me. Chris worked me out very hard and let's just say he was not terribly sympathetic to any of my protests. Steve jumped on the bandwagon and brought to my attention all of my self-defeating attitudes and THEN proceeded to quote my own blog AGAINST me. What the $%#@?!

I worked out with Chris for an hour. He made me do bear crawls. With weights. Do you know what bear crawls are? They are utterly absurd and embarrassing for any 41 year old woman to do, that's what they are!! They hurt. I feel completely ridiculous doing them. It brought me back to gym class in elementary school and how I dreaded having to do anything remotely athletic in front of anyone, especially my gym teacher. God bless you, Mr. Bullard, but you intimidated the hell out of me.

More than once during the workout I thought I was going to throw up. Seriously. When I pointed this out to Chris? He made sure I knew where the trash can was. If this blog weren't read by kids and other nice people, I'd tell you exactly where I wanted to shove that trash can. I told Chris, "You're working me out really hard today!"

He said, "I know. It's going to get a lot harder, Pamela. Get used to it."

He made me do agility drills. Do you know how far removed my mindset is from agility drills? I had to look up the word agility to see how to spell it, that's how far!

He made me push him across the room. You heard me. I had to push him across the room as he resisted. Have you seen the man? He's 6'4" and built like a monster. He competes in triathalons...on purpose! If I ever find myself in a triathalon it's because I've wandered into one accidentally, looking for a Dairy Queen.

During all this pushing, he'd stop dead in his tracks. It felt like smacking into a brick wall. Eeeeyeah...it hurt. The only thing I liked about it was that when I finally got him pushed to the end of the room I thought, maybe, I would have a sudden burst of life-saving adrenaline and be able to push him through the window. Didn't happen. I just felt like throwing up again. He seemed pleased that my heart rate was 168 immediately after.

Silly man. It wasn't from the pushing. It was from the rage.

There was more. Push ups, leg presses, a bunch of other things I purposely forget the names of.

He times me on things. Then he makes me beat my previous time. If I don't, I have to do it again. You know what? Sometimes by the end of the workout I don't feel like I have anything left. How fair is that to require me to have my best time at the end when my muscles are all noodley and I feel like my heart is ready to put me out of my misery by refusing to beat any longer?

He kept telling me to dig down and pull out my best time. I kept screaming at him, "Dig down? From where?!"

"Deeper! Do it!!"

During the peak of my frustration and annoyance with the workout, I looked at Steve and told him he should prepare himself. I am going to get really pissed at both of them some days. I have been angry with Chris during workouts when I think he's pushing me too hard. He has been angry with me too when he thinks I'm sandbagging him. We have actually left workouts on rare occasions with jaws clenched making terse comments to one another. Today felt like one of those days.

Right up until I smoked the last agility drill by nearly a second and he high-fived me.

I can count on one hand the number of times Chris has high-fived me.

Sometimes you don't know what you can do, until you do it.