On Being Mortal

I was determined to wake up early enough to exercise.  I always envied those people who woke up at the crack of dawn to start sweating and jumping around.  It seemed almost gloriously psychotic.

One of my coworkers has a wife who is a personal trainer.  She’s begun these early morning class-boot camp type things.  She and a bunch of other women get up and meet at 5 AM.  They do a series of stretches and warm-ups before running and all sorts of calorie burning activities.  I don’t know if I’d ever sign up for it (one, because I wouldn’t pay to have someone yelling at me at 5AM to tell me I’m a slow ball of beancurd rolling down the sidewalk).  But, I later talked to her one day and she says she gets up so early, she usually has to sleep during the day.  And she’s worried her daughters will look back and think, “All mommy would do is sleep all day…..”

Anyhow, this particular morning, I jumped up and popped in my Taebo DVD.  That’s right.  This is 2011.  And that’s right.  I’m watching a DVD from 1999.  Most friends I tell this story to, don’t believe that they even had Taebo on DVD; they only remember the VHS tapes.  But here I was, pressing the play button.

I’d done this routine so many times I don’t even need to look at the screen.  It’s more just for the sound, I suppose and the occasional motivation I get from looking at Billy Blank’s sweaty brow.  There I was, stretching and breathing, kicking and punching, twisting and focusing.  I love it when he says the line, “Where’s your weight?  Where’s your weight?  But the real question, where’s your heart?”

So there I was, feeling pretty good and it was getting near the end of the routine because we were in the section where we do squats.  In the last few minutes, you do squats and then hold a squat for about 10 seconds.  And as I hold my legs firm to support my squat, a shooting pain runs down my lower back and I yelp.  I slump over onto my bed and can’t move.  Pain felt like it was spewing from my back.  I tried breathing slowly.  I couldn’t stand up straight.

What was more painful than the feeling in my back, was the realization that I’ve become one of those people who have to be careful when exercising because of their body limitations.  How sad.  I’m falling apart.

I probably blew the whole thing out of proportion.  I probably didn’t shift my weight correctly to support my squat.  But it still made me feel awfully….mortal.  As I type this, I’m still feeling tweaks in my back and wonder if I need another aspirin.  *sigh*