Mighty Me

Posted on my Weight Watchers blog on July 31st, 2012…

I AM A CROSSTRAINING CHAMPION!

YES, I AM.

OH YES, I AM.

Ahem.

No I shan’t mention that in the race I had today I totally got my butt whipped. I’m still a champion.

Here’s the story…

Because you totally knew there would be a story because, hey, this is me you’re reading.

I got to the gym today after having regrouped from the little incident that happened during yesterday’s session with the B!tch Twins (yes, they now have a name) and decided to shake up my routine a bit and do something a touch harder than just the treadmill.

I looked at the crosstrainer.

It looked back at me.

I glared at the crosstrainer.

It glared back at me.

I narrowed my eyes at the crosstrainer.

The crosstrainer was all “C’mon, you ain’t got the cojones to start on me today. Go for a stroll on Mr Treadmill over there, princess…”

And I was all, “OH NO YOU DI’INT!”

(Like my impression of a black drag queen?  Am I stereotyping? Oops.)

I punched 30 minutes into that sucker, on a moderately difficult setting (because going hard into the unknown is a bad thing, y’all) and hopped on.

20 minutes later I was dying, legs burning, hands clinging desperately to the grips, reps dropping below 60rpm…

Dammit, the crosstrainer was winning.

I was cowed. Beaten by a mostly inanimate object with an attitude.

Epic fail.

But not quite.  Salvation was at hand.

“Don’t stop,” I hear beside me.

Looking to my left, I discovered The Grunter doing his thing on the crosstrainer next to mine. And he was whipping that thing’s ass!

“Huhn?”  Me, eloquent always.

“Don’t stop!”

Now, dear reader, I love hearing those words from a man, but in a completely different scenario… possibly one that involves leather handcuffs and vanilla custard…

I was despairing. “But…”

“C’mon,” he says, leaning to look at my screen,  “You got 10 more minutes. So do I. Let’s see how far you can get.”

Me, out loud: “Um, ‘kay….”

Me, mentally: “ARRRRRGGGGGHHHH NOOOOO IHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOU!!”

But I did it.  I got my reps back up to above 70rpm and stayed there, even when the program started to increase the incline again.  For 10 solid minutes The Grunter and I were heads down, throwing our all in on those machines.  I was going at a snail’s pace compared to him and got most of a kilometer in distance whereas I think he might have smashed out another six, but hey… I’ve never had so much fun losing a race before.

Why am I happy about it?

Because 18 months ago, I couldn’t manage five minutes on 0 incline and level 2 resistance.

Today I managed, for the first time ever, to go a full 30 minutes on an incline that was anywhere between 10 and 40 on level 4.

Without stopping once.

Yep.  I’m a champion today.