Teammates

Due to a long, complicated series of events this week, I had to cancel my Wednesday training appointment with G. the Meanie. Now this is a guy who calls clients who aren't feeling well and tells them to get their butt to the gym, pronto. He doesn't care who he pisses off. But he knew the back story and why it was important for me to cancel at last minute, and he was completely understanding.

In short, he's not always a total meanie.

But he's a meanie most of the time, and today was no exception. It was Cardio Day, and just because I've spent quite a bit of time this week in tears, not sleeping, and popping Xanax (never more than the dose I'm supposed to take, Mom, so don't freak out!), doesn't mean I can get away with anything less than 100% effort.

We started, as usual, at his desk. He picked up a medicine ball and said, "We have a teammate today." A medicine ball is basically a basketball, except that it only bounces about a foot off the ground because it weighs 10 pounds.

"This ball is not allowed to touch the ground AT ALL during our workout today. We'll take turns holding it."

"Okay..." I replied with a growing sense of forboding.

"We're going to do 20 minutes stairs, some Versa Climber, some sprints and some skips and see what time it is when we've done all that."

"Right." Oh, shit.

He walked briskly to the row of Stair Masters as I trudged behind. We had a new rule today--no holding on. He didn't seem to care that I have a near-constant feeling that I'm going to fall backwards off the damn machine to my certain death three feet below. "No excuses, Megan!"

We started at level 3, which is fairly easy for me when I'm holding on. After one minute, we bumped it up to level 7. This is when the whining started. Finally, it was back to level 3--with a twist. It was my turn to hold our teammate for the next two intervals.

We made it ten minutes and the whining that came from my mouth was pretty epic. G. just kept pushing, not allowing me to quit, hold on, fall off, or otherwise give anything but 100%.

After an all-too-brief rest, it was back up to the Stair Master for another 10 minutes of grueling, I'm-gonna-vomit-now, fun. When I shared my fear of upsetting my lunch, G. just smiled and said, "Good!"

Bastard.

"Come on, Megan, you're not doing anything that I'm not doing with you!"

"I...*gasp* oughtta...make you...*wheeze* come to Chorale and sing sometime. You *gasp* wouldn't be doing *groan* anything I wouldn't be *sniffle* doing with you."

That got a belly laugh. Finally, we were finished. G. jumped nimbly to the ground as I clung for dear life to the bars and gently let myself down, gingerly testing the ground to see if the gym would start spinning. It didn't, so off I went, following him to the Versa Climber and feeling fifteen kinds of wretched.

We took turns doing one-minute intervals, holding our teammate when it was our turn to rest. I'm not a huge fan of the Versa Climber (my exact words when the gym manager commented that he'd never used it were, "I HATE THIS THING!!") but I made it through my five sets relatively unscathed.

Next, it was out to the parking lot for sprints. This should, in theory, be easy. Sprint about 50 meters, jog back. Ten times. No problem, right?

Not the first time. The first time looked great. G. praised my running, and I actually felt kind of good. But the second time, it was my turn to babysit our teammate. I learned--quite quickly--that holding a ten-pound basketball really slows a gal down. G. is always telling me to really use my arms to propel myself forward when I run--impossible when trying not to drop the stupid teammate and trip on it.

"What's the matter, Megan? Why are you slowing down?"

"Uh, this is kind of hard with a ten-pound ball, you know."

"Is it really?"

"Uh...DUH!" I'm really witty when I'm exhausted.

We did the ten sprints with very little break between. After the sixth or seventh time, I was gasping and begging for a second to recoup.

"No break! Right back to it. Come on."

"Have I told you lately that I hate you?"

Finally, it was back inside, to do some high-knee skips in the aerobics room. Still with the teammate, which I was really starting to loathe. By the time I finished those (and I'll point out that my other teammate, one G. the Meanie, did NOT do these with me), I was a sweat-drenched, barely-breathing pile of smelly gym clothes.

It's days like this that really make me want to hate G., but I can't. I'm seeing too many awesome results, and while I call him a meanie, he's actually not so bad. He honestly cares about his clients and wants to change lives. I appreciate that. I'm not paying him to let me quit, or to treat me like a baby. I'm paying him for exactly what I get: intense work-outs, huge support, someone who doesn't let me quit...and some excellent blog fodder.