Okay, now I get why people need personal trainers!

Good afternoon!

I haven't thought about KRAM, my wonderful personal trainer from my Golds Gym days in a long time.  Okay, that's not exactly true.  I think about him every time I eat a donut because I eat donuts I think of the guy Golds Gym first put me with, the donut crumb blower.  And then I think about Golds Gym, and then I think about KRAM.

Household finances forced us to abandon the Gold's membership a bit more than a year ago.  But my friend, Dee has stayed on, working out, and becoming an instructor. The time she's worked with a personal trainer and she's shared some of the stories.

They sound just awful.  I mean, why would anyone allow another person to force them to do something until 1)  it hurt  2) it bled or 3) it made you throw up?  Nope, unless Dolvett Quince himself showed up on my doorstep and started yelling at me, I'm not doing anything until I throw up.  

Or so I thought.

Let me tell you just exactly how stupid I am.

Last night I signed up for a 5K.  It's for charity.  It's with my friend Marie.  It's going to get me a free ticket to see "Dirty Dancing" (the play) that night.  (Okay, Marie sent me a text asking if I wanted the ticket and I said sure and she said she was doing a 5K in the morning and then we'd go to the play and I said, "sign me up!")  

5K is roughly 3.2 miles.  I haven't walked that much, uninterrupted, in a row...maybe since Marching band years.  (You know, back when dinosaurs roamed and we measured everything in feet and miles because the metric system was really more mythology than math.  Now, the metric system is all about SPORTS, so, still mythology.)  Those were the years we'd march almost from sunup to sundown. Of course, we were in high school and after marching all that time, we still had the energy to sleep on a gym floor and eat junk food and sing pop tunes.

I don't mind walking.  I do it almost every day.  It's just that I prefer sitting so much more.

Anyway, I'm off the topic.

So I decided today that I should really try and train for this 5K thing coming up the end of May.  I decided that this morning.

Then I worked.  Then I found out my lunch plans had fallen through and here I was all dressed up in my nice jeans and a clean shirt and my hair was done  (let's just working at home has really given me a reason to go 'natural' many days of the week.)  so I decided to go out.  And I was going to go to the one place Hubby refuses to take me:  The big Chinese Buffet.

I really do like Chinese food. Of course, I've been cutting down on carbs, or trying to, for the last

couple months, so when faced with roughly 5K of steamer tables full of food, I eschewed the rice and noodles table.  Score one for me.  (Don't get used to it.  That's about the only point I score in this story.)

I filled my plate sparingly.  I went back to my table, ate, drank water  (okay, that's my second score) and read a book.  I had three servings, all sparing.

All pretty much made of General Tso's chicken.  

I had no idea I liked the stuff so much.  In fact, I didn't even know what I was eating until I LOOKED UP at the tags on the steamer tables.  Basically I was going back for the shiny chicken dish.  (oooh, shiny.)

I felt bad about how much of the General's chicken I'd consumed, so I topped it off with a handful of grapes and some cantaloupe.  Oh yeah, I'm a health nut.

As I headed to my car, I realized it was a perfectly lovely day and I was a few blocks from the biggest park in the city and it was a perfect day for a nice walk.  I drove to the park, Parked the Cube, got my iPod all geared up, noted the time and the steps on my step counter, and figured this would be a great time to START MY TRAINING.

Anyone see what's coming?

So off I set, wearing my dressy jeans, the heavy ones, a lace trimmed shirt, and my purse, and wearing shoes built to cushion senior citizens' feet when they mall walk.  I was wearing the wrong shoes, I was wearing roughly 10 pounds of extra weight in clothing and purse, and I had a belly full of General Tso's Chicken.

WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

That I figured out about 50 steps into the walk.  My stomach bloated and my whole body felt distended.  It was hard to move quickly...I actually had a problem catching up to and passing the guy with the walker.  Seriously...the guy with the walker.  But I managed to pass him without breaking any...laws or passing any...other people.  I rounded the corner which put me on the other side of the river and it was on.  A race against time, against fat, against a sore toe, and against the monster flatulence I knew was building inside me.

My body tensed with each step. I was determined to make it around this path, which runs between two city bridges over the river, without stopping, without slowing down, and without blowing the seat out of my pants.

About a quarter of the way in, as I was huffing and puffing in an attempt to pass an 80 year old woman with a fanny pack and a limp, I realized I was going to lose at least one of those four battles.  But, I'm a lady.  So I waited until I was cleared of the 80 year old to open the jets, as they say.  

Can't make this up.

Ah, that felt better. For about six seconds and then the pressure in my gut began building again.  I reached that point in any hike that's the worst:  the furthest point from the car.  That's the point you know you're halfway, and it doesn't matter if you turn back or if you go forward, the distance is the same which means the moment of relief is the same. And that's when...and I'm not making this up because I'm not that clever...I saw the sign.

Yep, my sentiments exactly.

By the time I reached the second bridge and was able to turn for home, my stomach was at about 9 months pregnant, so I fit right with the rest of the walkers on that side of the river, but my chicken fueled gut bomb was no longer my biggest issue.

I hadn't brought water along.  My mouth was parched and I was breathing heavily because I was determined to NOT slow down.  Still, not my biggest problem.

No, remember, I was wearing heavy, dark, denim.  I was sweating and chafing in a way I never have and I suddenly felt a new found respect for Rupert from Survivor who cut his jeans into a skirt

because jeans and hot and exercise do not go together well! 

So there I was, hot, heaving, chafing, panting, bloating, and probably limping.  It's a wonder no one called the cops or something on me.  Then again, it is downtown Waukesha...colorful characters abound. Usually not at 1 PM on a Thursday, but they abound.

My rule for this little walk was to stay on the cobblestones because if you jump from cobblestone to black top you can actually shorten the walk significantly.  The final turn on cobblestone, however, would have added some 300 steps to my walk and by the time I reached that fork in the road I knew if I didn't get to the car and stop moving for a minute bad, bad things were going to start exploding out of my body.

I got to the car finally.  TAH DAH!  The walk was 1.5 miles, and I did it in 36 minutes.  I'm not burning up the track here, but I managed to outpace the guy with the walker.  

That's not the end of the story. OF COURSE NOT.

So there I am, in the cube, thirsty.  And the only two forms of fluid I have in the Cube are a travel mug of coffee, leftover from who knows when, and some very warm carbonated water.

Well I'm not drinking the  days old coffee.  There's cream in there.  That's can't be healthy.

Nope, I opt for the carbonated water.  And I instantly regret THAT.

Carbonation does what?  STRETCHES THE STOMACH.  

Yupper, that's what it does. And when the stomach is already stretched, well, then it's just a ticking time bomb until either the stomach explodes or the release valve is opened in an appropriate place.

See, a personal trainer would probably have advised against a long walk after eating General Tso's chicken.  A personal trainer would probably have advised against eating General Tso's chicken.

So next time I'll know better.  Right?