The Things We Do

Sometimes I question my own sanity.

This morning the alarm went off at 5:30am, which is a little early for me, because I had to be at the gym for my Boot Camp at 7:00am. (The hour and half gives me some extra snooze time and includes a 40-minute commute.) When the alarm went off the first time, Zimby, the older cat was curled up against me and I was hugging her with my left arm. Mini, the younger, was between my legs, and Mr. Mingle was on the other side. So, basically, I was totally pinned. This doesn’t bother me since I rarely move in my sleep anyway, and I love to be snuggly warm. There I was - snuggly, sleepy, and happy when the alarm rang.

After the third snooze alarm, I finally forced my way out of my bed-cat cave and got ready for the pain ahead. Seriously, after an hour of torture from the trainer, I found myself thinking, “whatever possessed me to leave the bed in the first place??” Is it willpower, or just plain craziness? I’ll tell you – craziness.

I am now the only person attending the boot camp, and the trainer is kicking my ass. Don’t get me wrong - I like her, and afterall, I am paying for this torture – by why I continue to do this to myself, I have no idea. I was dead tired after 45 minutes, and made the mistake of thinking we were finished. I looked at the clock and to my horror saw that there were 15 minutes left. That’s when she had me do jumping jacks ("what's going on with your arms?"), running in place ("knees high! higher!"), push-ups ("ooh, nice one - let's do 10 more, ready? 20-19-...", and then she said (bitch) “grab the weights and follow me”. Oh Yeah, I followed her – followed her chipper-frickin ass right up 4 flights of stairs while carrying 10-pound weights in each hand. Under normal circumstances this is doable, even easy, (although why this would EVER be a normal circumstance, I can’t figure out), but after 45 minutes of hell, following the chipper trainer up the stairs was grueling. She tried to give me a hint to swing the weights in my arms as I tromped up the stairs, but I misread the cue and thought she was mocking me, “ha ha, I don’t have weights in my hands!” At the top, she took the weights from me and said, in her sing-song-I’ve-already been-awake-for-4-hours-voice, “okay, now run back down and back up again!”

She’s smart though – that trainer. We practiced boxing today with smelly gloves that she brought in, in the beginning of the session. Had it been in the end, when I was shooting darts at her from my eyes, I may have accidentally missed the hand held pad, and oops – hit the face. Not just because of the sing-song torture she was showering on me today, but also the fact that I’d lost all muscle control in my arms. I’m telling you – this is insanity.