
Note: this is a special Guest Post by LittleM, who is helping out while the Crab is on vacation. Thank you, LittleM!I am no orator, like Mer and Crab;
I sit on sidelines while they write, and cheer.
I’ll try to offer fitness thoughts not drab;
And post – for you to comment further – here.
The dashing Merry posted a little while back about those of us who qualify unreservedly to be
Fitness Squares. On bad days, I’m usually aping a Fitness Rhombus. Or perhaps a Trapezoid.
There are people who just aren’t that jazzed about the idea of fitness. Most of them probably don’t read this blog.
Then there are the genius writers who put this community together (Yay! Merry! Rah! Crabby!) and the commenters here, so many of whom exhibit staggering discipline and commitment in their efforts to put together a body that can grapple effectively with this battle, this war, it feels like sometimes--that we call 21st century life.
I’m sort of in the middle. I was an athlete in high school; there’s a record I still hold *ahem* years later. But my quadriceps, following such follies as a ripped meniscus stemming from a nasty incident in a national tournament tryout, would laugh derisively and say: “What is the point of training like that when you’re a teenager if you just …
dissolve … to plasma and jelly as decades roll on?”
And the more 5's and 0's birthdays that roll by, the quicker the reversion to shapeless/breathless seems to appear, and the more sweat – and whining (and sometimes just plain profanity) is required in an attempt just to get back to that place where you
were, let alone improve.
And so I struggle, like many here may, to find the time and energy in light of a responsible job that has nothing to do with sports, or training – and all that other ancillary stuff, like, you know,
life – to quiet my quadriceps’ mocking, to simultaneously subdue and nurture them so that we can get on together, like a team, and accomplish yet some more stuff in the rest of this life.
It seems to me, that - barring elite athlete status – whenever you come up with a grand fitness plan, other than motivation the biggest, hugest, meeeeanest obstacle when it comes to execution is:
LOGISTICS.
Like Traffic/the Gym Commute. Work hours. Minor injuries. Or one of my favorites: when you get to the store
just before they close to buy your favorite protein powder or low-fat dairy whatever, because the manager promised you that they were going to order it in, and they don’t have it in the store! Even though they
promised you they would!! And you don’t have one nanosecond to shop for another three days!!!
Now what???
*insert favorite epithet here*
I’ve Filed a Formal Pleading Request with the 28-Hours-in-a-Day DivisionI recently attended a fundraiser supporting a Well Known Senator (Male) and another Well Known Senator (Female).
The WKSF mentioned that while she so admired the WKSM’s drive and ability to be in the gym, daily, on their respective campaign tours, that she had to utilize that same drive and ability that she would have used for such activity in order to make sure – in an effort to withstand the press’ microscopic scrutiny— that her wardrobe, hair, and makeup were impeccably done.
Given the fact that the press has profiled her as both a former athlete with a professional coach for a brother, and possibly Jackie Onassis’ potential style heir apparent – I can’t help but wonder, how the WKSM’s
wife manages to do both.
So we have the two directives.
“Be impeccably groomed. Especially when in business/in public, but mostly all the time.”
“Be in impeccable shape.”
And the inevitable head-on collision – complete with crash and noise – when they intersect.
Crabby has made vivid reference to the prep and the post-dismantle of working out – and if flipping
U.S. Senators are having trouble measuring up to these standards, that none claim to have set, but nonetheless seem to be living, breathing, writhing things all around us – well, I say that we get right down to the nitty of the famed gritty.
I have read that Secretary of State Rice gets up at around
4:00AM to complete her daily run prior to her daily day.
That your hair is still wet from the workout/shower but you have a meeting – in an hour - with the board of directors that demands a blow-dried upsweep –-
That because you didn’t have time to stop sweating before you had to get in the shower, and you couldn’t take a cool shower because otherwise you’d cramp, so you had to take a warmer one, when you got out of the shower you were still sweating and so your makeup proceeded to melt right off your face --
That the fitness sites go on and on and ON about how proper sleep is required for proper muscle development (you know, in order to burn fat and actually get stronger and all) – and then they talk about how “proper sleep” really means 7-9 hours – and you laugh in the article’s face because, in a desperate attempt to get everything done for job plus family plus workout, you haven’t seen more than 5 and a half hours any night in the past 5 and a half years --
How do you manage it?