The Way I See It # 341: Article # 1

I guess you could say it all started in elementary school.
Remember that kid that was always dead last running the mile? That was me.
Remember me either:
A. Struggling to breath
B. Clinging to another child to cross the finish line
C. Crying
D. All of the above.
In my defense, it was never easy being told to run four laps in
jeans and a sweatshirt. All right, so there were kids that managed to run outrageously faster than me wearing the same attire, but whatever. My point is that being an incredibly poor athlete at the age of 9 didn’t say much about my physical ability later in life. The mile was something I always dreaded, and in high school I had all kinds of kids who played sports in my P.E class. And they played sports…. For fun. What was this nonsense? While my lack of interest in chasing a ball or climbing a rope isolated me into feeling like maybe I was missing out, it also caused my gym grade to plummet. While I made up for it with extra credit… I had to wonder: Was there a sport I could like?
Enter my gusto to actually try at sports. My first attempt? All the
popularly acclaimed “Hot girls” at my high school tried out for field hockey, so naturally, accepting the fact that I was (ahem) one of these “hot girls” (laughable!), and, you know, it looked like fun, I took a summer camp in the sport. While the experience with teamwork, learning from an actual coach, and meeting other girls was beneficial, that’s about all that was. Two bruised thumbs, losing the “championship” between the teams competing in the camp, and actually realizing that my sarcastic sense of humor wasn’t something that everyone could appreciate, I realized that Hockey wasn’t for me. Maybe the deciding moment was when another girl named Lisa happened to be the best player on our team, and I was the worst. “Not THAT Lisa, THAT Lisa is awesome!” was a little too much to bear. Sport number 1, down.
Instead of actual sports I turned my attention to theatre and
improv sports, But when I ended my high school days and moved on to college I suddenly reawakened with the desire to get fit. After all, Seigle Center was free! I no longer had an excuse to not go to the gym. And after a couple of days with 2 helpings of Shafer at every meal, I was just about ready to go run a mile voluntarily to make up for it.
Instead of wanting to be a part of a sports team, I focused my interests an achieving something better: an Olympic-worthy figure (okay, so maybe not that extreme). Not that anyone truly needs the perfect, and not that I am obsessive compulsive with the idea, but I figured going to the gym a couple times a week would be awesome, and I’d look fabulous. I would discipline and how to train my body into a calorie burning machine
This story is a tragic one. When I first walked into Seigle I was immediately intimidated. I guess the thought that people who go to the gym actually know what they’re doing never occurred to me. Playing it safe, I stuck to the Elliptical (only for 30 minutes!) and kept my head down. But going to the gym wasn’t just doing something to pass the time, it was relaxing. I had never imagined exercising as a way of relaxing. There I could listen to music, read magazine, and think about stuff. After a week or so I decided to do one of the group exercise classes that Seigle offers; Body Sculpting was the class I chose. Let’s just say that I couldn’t walk properly for a week. The stairs to my classes were torture, and even getting out of my XL twin bed was an exercise in frustration. Needless to say, I didn’t go back the gym for the rest of semester. Cycling through bouts of enthusiasm about going to the gym, I managed to work my way in and out of Seigle every couple of weeks or so, just so I could feel that I was reaching my quota for the month. This process doesn’t exactly get you the body you want.
Maybe I just need to admit to myself that I’m not that kind person who exercises all the time. I guess if I was, I would have been that person at the age of 9, and I might have enjoyed running the mile. But progressing as an athlete isn’t the same as progressing as a person, and the more I think about it, it would probably do me better to be obsessed about becoming a better person. I’ll just leave out the extra helpings of Shafer from now on.



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