Will Stretch with Tweety-Lover for Free Yoga Class

As I struggle with my uncontrollable urge to giggle, I open one eye to peer over at Lori who, to my surprise, is letting out a hearty “Oh-mmm” with a very “Zen” look on her face.

“Oh no,” I thought to myself, “Lori has been yogafied.”   

As I spoke of our current gym woes (i.e. having to pay to go) at work one day, my coworker mentioned that there was another community center nearby that offered exercise classes and had a small gym.  She also noted that they had a decent rate and directed me to their website. I rushed to my computer to check it out. With all the excitement of a glutton having just discovered the newest hostess cake to hit the market, I eagerly sent a text to Lori with the news! We had a new “gym” to check out. And the best part? The first visit was FREE!

We planned to head over to the BG Community Center on Thursday after work. There was a yoga class at 5:30 that we wanted to try, but we would just get there in time.  Having never been to a yoga class before, I left work a little early so I could run to Target for a mat. The last thing I wanted was to show up mat-less, giving myself away as the yoga virgin that I was.  

Armed with my new blue mat, I rushed home to change for class. Running late myself, I was frantic when I got a text from Lori saying that she was stuck in traffic. We decided that I would head over, in order to reserve our spots in the class and she would just meet me there. 

I pulled into the BG Community Center parking lot at 5:28. There were only two cars in the parking lot. Had I gotten the wrong time? The wrong place? As I rushed inside, I noticed a girl on the bench outside talking on her phone with yoga mat to her side. Class was due to start in seconds…what was she doing outside?  Having read online that class space was limited, I worried that she didn’t make the cut. But if that was the case, where were all of the cars?!

 I nervously approached the counter and asked the nice, older gentleman if the yoga class was full. Behind me, I hear a robust “HA!!” I turn around to see a large, middle-aged woman in a tweety bird t-shirt laughing at me. “It’s just me and the teacher!” she says, pointing to the girl on the bench who is still chatting away on her phone.  In this moment, I knew that my first yoga experience would be anything but typical…

to be continued....

Will Sweat With the Oldies for Cheap Cardio

Kelly and I sized up our classmates for Step Aerobics while sitting in the waiting area of the Greentree Community Center.  There was the older lady in the spandex shorts (ick!), the older lady with the flawless 80’s bangs (ick!), the older lady with the giant purse that matched mine (how dare she!), her high school age daughter in a ripped up muscle tank top (not very ladylike if you ask me), and then there were two very large women who kept their eyes downcast.  We were feeling pretty good about this class since we thought we were a couple of the most fit in the group. 

When Zumba was over and everyone was clearing out, we went in to the room to set up.  We grabbed the step and only one level of the risers; this was after all our first class, no need to kill ourselves.  That’s when I started feeling a little strange about our classmates.  They were getting two levels of risers for their stairs.  I considered this but thought, “Eh, no big deal.  These old ladies have been doing this for a while.  No need to compete.”  Our instructor looked Kelly and I up and down and just went to the front of the classroom without saying anything to us.  But that was all it took for us to make up an opinion about her.  Kelly quickly leaned over to me and said, “Did you see her?!  She looks just like Angela from ‘The Office’ only she is buff!” 

“Yesssss!  She does look just like her!” I  said.

“She’s buff Angela!”

“Ha!!  She must teach Geriatric Aerobics on the side!

“Alright let’s get started!” Yelled buff Angela.

We started with pretty basic stuff, marching in place, jumping jacks and then we moved on to the step.  Step up, and off.  Easy right?  WRONG!  There is much more to this than just stepping on and off a riser.  Kelly and I were pouring sweat before the warm up was done.  But the worst was yet to come.  Buff Angela had us stepping and turning while on a riser and landing facing a different direction and then reversing it!  I cannot even describe the strange moves that she was making us do.  I was so lost most of the time I was just stepping up spinning and hoping that I landed like everyone else.  Kelly and I were a disaster in this class.  As if my non-coordinated pride didn’t hurt bad enough, then the old ladies started in on us.

“You are younger than me and you can’t even keep up with me!  Hahaha!” laughed spandex.

“I’m not even breaking a sweat and you two aren’t even stepping anymore!” said bangs.  (To her credit, her bangs were still flawless.)

“Ha, yeah.  This is our first class,” replied Kelly in the nicest way you can manage when you are sweating buckets and being made fun of by old ladies.  “We’ll get better.”

“You are really good! “ I said still attempting to make friends.  But I noticed something when I was at the Greentree Center dying, Buff Angela looked at us, smirked and then looked at the mother and daughter combo.  The mother and daughter rolled their eyes towards buff Angela and then went back to work.  They were rolling their eyes at us!  Rude, rude, rude!  (Honestly, there are mirrors everywhere in a workout room, how much did you seriously think you were going to get away with?)  I looked at Kelly and saw that she had seen the eye rolling too.  Now we were mad.  And one thing that you old, spandex-y, 80’s-bang-loving, snide-body-building-grannies need to know about Kelly and I is don’t make us mad.  We locked eyes and out of the depths of our exhausted bodies, we got our second wind.  For the first time since we had been there, we were nailing the moves!  Step, step, turn, leg up, hands in the air, step, jump, spin, whatever!  We were finally getting it.  Then we ran out of steam again.  We were once again at the mercy of buff Angela and her drones.  Luckily, we had made it all the way to abs.  If you have ever been in a work out class before, you know this is the part where you can rest.  If you are tired, no one is watching so you can just lay there.  But since we were still mad we kept with it.  That buff Angela is no joke either, she did a full ten minutes of abs before she let us go.  She was brutal!  For the next four days I ached and thought of buff Angela every time I laughed, sneezed, or coughed.

The Greentree Center was not a bad little center.  Since Kelly and I are not residents of their city, the price was just too much for us.  We would have to continue our search for a good, cheap gym with nice people.  Buff Angela really did put on a great class, she was just a…..well, nevermind.

Kelly snapped this picture during class.

Will Bargain for Cheap Cardio

“Um, ok.   If we can’t do Zumba, or Spinning what can we do here?” I asked the teenage girl with the giant bow in her hair.

“You can do Step Aerobics!” she replied cheerily.

“Ok, fine.  We’ll do that,” I conceded as I exhaled slowly.

After our fiasco with the YMCA, Kelly and I decided that we wanted to find another Zumba class at a cheaper gym.  Kelly used her detective skills and came up with the Greentree Community Center.  It was pretty close to where we lived and for residents of the city of Greentree it was only $50 per year.  We are not residents of Greentree so we would have to pay $200 a year, which is still cheaper than the YMCA (and let’s face it, the guest passes and our nerve had run out).  Kelly had found a schedule online and it had Zumba at 6 o’clock on Thursdays and at 6:30 there was spinning.  So after work one Thursday we headed over to the center to try to get in for Zumba.  We are not the most punctual people and we ended up heading over to Greentree at 5:45 and arrived there at 6:05.  Crap!

We walked in, again with our heads held high, and determined to get a good workout.  If they wouldn’t let us in for Zumba we would just do Spinning. No big deal, we like bike riding and we did need to train for our big bike ride coming up anyway.  Kelly took the lead with the gatekeeper this time.  She was a teenage girl with a giant, permanent, smile on her face, a giant bow in her hair, and a far off look in her eyes.  Immediately we could tell that she would be MUCH easier to deal with than then front doorman at the Y. 

“Hi, we want to go to the Zumba class, I know we’re a little late, but can we still go?” asked Kelly in a very sweet tone.

“Uh, no,” replied bow, “They started five minutes ago and you have to be here right as they start or you’re not allowed in.

Kelly and I exchanged glances.   We had expected this to happen since we were late, so we had a backup plan in place.  Kelly smiled and launched right into it better than we had rehearsed in the car.  “No problem, I saw online that you have a Spinning class that starts at 6:30 and if we can’t go to Zumba then I guess we will just do that instead.”

“Uh, no,” bow chirped with a smile.  “You have to sign up for Spinning at the beginning of the session.  Each session is six weeks long and this is the second week.  We only have 12 bikes and we have 10 people signed up this session.”

“Perfect!” I said.  “We could just sneak in the back and use the two bikes that aren’t being used and it won’t even matter.”

“Uh, no,” said bow.  “One of those bikes is used for the teacher and you really have to sign up at the beginning of the session.”

Recoiled, Kelly and I discussed our situation away from the desk.  We had not planned for this when we were going through the possible scenarios on the way to the center. 

In a whisper Kelly said, “What do we do now?!  We are here already, I made sure I had my $5 so that we could get in and now we don’t have a class to go to!”

I replied, “I know, this is crazy!  Plus, who the heck wears a bow that huge in their hair after they start dressing themselves!?  I mean, really?” (It is important to know that when a girl tells me no, I get catty.)

“Seriously!  It looks ridiculous!” Kelly snapped right back (apparently, she gets a little catty too), “and what is she in a cult or something because she is way too cheerful!?”

“I know!  She is like the kids that work at Chick-Fil-A, only worse, she has a bow!”

“Ha ha!  Ok, maybe we can just work out on their cardio equipment.  That way we can scope it out and see if we like it.  Maybe we can peek and see what the Zumba and Spinning looks like so we can sign up next session.”

“Good idea.”

Back at the desk, Kelly started talking with bow-girl again.  “Can we just go in and do a regular workout?  We won’t do a class, just work out.”

“Uh, no.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said while rolling my eyes.

“You have to be a member to work out, you can pay $5 and do a class, but only members with signed waivers can be on the equipment,” explained cheerful bow.

“Um, ok.   If we can’t do Zumba, or Spinning what can we do here?” I asked the teenage girl with the giant bow in her hair.

“You can do Step Aerobics!” she replied cheerily.

“Ok, fine.  We’ll do that,” I conceded.

To be continued…..

Will Solicit for Gym Entry

As Kelly and I were jumping up and down in the rain, waving our hands in the air like a couple of mental patients I couldn’t help but wonder “is there really ‘no need to feel blue’ here at the YMCA?  They won’t even let us in!”

It happened one rainy evening when we were not going to run outside (I’m a fair weather runner) we went to the YMCA with guest passes that my mother gave us.  We wanted to try out the gym to see if we liked it and we wanted to do it for free.  So I picked up Kelly and we headed over to the Y.

Once we arrived at the Y (There's a place you can go, I said young man, when you're short on your dough) with our free guest passes, we marched up to the front desk with our heads held high, we smiled at the kindly older gentleman behind the counter and I loudly announced, "We are here to work out."  We handed him our guest passes and kept our big cheesy grins on our faces.  He looked down at the guest passes and back up at us and said, "Not unless you have a member with you."   He handed us the passes back.  "My m-m-mom is a-a-a member," I stuttered.  However, it wasn't enough for this old guy to let us in.  After he slowly explained (and removed the smiles from our faces) that we need a member with us to be allowed in to their VIP gym (with the picture of Jesus behind him) he asked us to leave.  None of our convincing words would change his mind.  We walked back out into the rain clutching our passes, in utter shock.  We had just been kicked out of the YMCA (Young man, there’s no need to feel down). 

We stood just outside of the main door, in the rain and started devising a plan to get back in (Young man, young man, pick yourself off the ground).  We would solicit one of the incoming members to pretend to be our mother and then we would be allowed in!  (Genius!)  Kelly and I started asking the members that walked by if they would be our mother. "Will you be my mom?"  But not a single person stopped to help us, they just kept walking by and giving us looks like we were strange or something!  Then Kelly saved the day!  She spotted a friend/acquaintance from college through the large, glass windows of the gym.  Her friend was on the second story of the building and on an elliptical.  We started jumping around and waving our arms and guest passes in the air in an effort to get her attention.  Finally, we were able to get her attention and she came out to see us.  She agreed be our sponsor (it was obvious that she wasn't our mom) and walked us back in to face the old man with too much power (There’s no need to be un-happy.  Dun dun dun dun duuuuuuh.)

The friend walked up to the counter like she had done hundreds of times (she's a paying member, you know) and addressed the old grump. "Hey Jerry, these are my friends and they have guest passes. I'll sponsor them." "Oh really? And how do you know these girls?" he replied.  The skepticism in the air was thick.  Kelly spoke up, "Oh we..." And that's when it happened. The old man hushed...and held up one finger. He turned to the friend and said "No, you tell me first...and then she can tell me. I want to make sure your stories match." So there, in the lobby of the YMCA, two former college classmates took turns whispering into the ear of an old man the name of the class that they shared. Luckily, the stories matched and he reluctantly allowed us to pass through the threshold and into a world of gym socks and sweat bands. Glory to the Highest!

Once we were in, we split up from the friend and headed to a Zumba class.   Waiting in the hallway to go into Zumba, Kelly and I started asking the other girls around us what they thought about it and we ended up getting a full review from an older lady.  She told us how she loves Zumba because it "gets you sweating, and it’s better than running!”  So we went in and secured a place in the back of the classroom next to our new hallway friend.  The music started and the unnatural dance moves commenced!  We were looking around at women in tank tops, spandex shorts, and running shoes with jingle scarves wrapped around their waists like belly dancers.  We were underdressed in our old t-shirts that advertised whatever activity the person that donated the shirt to Goodwill was involved in.  I looked to my left to see our friend from the hallway shaking what her momma gave her in the most offensive way for a woman her age!  The only problem was she was not with the rest of the class at ALL!  Good for her for trying, but God bless her she was dancing to the beat of a different drum.  However, Kelly and I weren't much better either (I said young man, put your pride on the shelf).  About 3/4 of the way through the class one of the instructors moved to the back next to us so that we could watch her and get the moves.  She made a big deal of moving to help us by weaving in and out of people just to get to the back row.  Once she was next to us, she kept yelling over the music, "No!  Kick, jump, step, step, and then shimmy!  Woooooo!!! SHAKE IT!!!"  We shook with all of our might and thankfully, our magical shaking sent her back to the front of the class.  The cool down could not come soon enough.  We waddled out of class on jelly legs and decided that Zumba was fun and with a little more practice, we might not feel so silly.  We wanted to belong to the Y, even after the less than warm welcome that we received from the gatekeeper and people not wanting to be our mother.  But after researching the price for the YMCA, it just wasn't for us. 

We were not done with the doorman though.  After I told my mom about being kicked out of the Y she got mad.  She explained that the guest passes were passed out at a health fair at her work as an effort to get new members at the Y.  So we went back with my mom and step-dad in tow (we were so nervous that I begged my mom to take us and let us in).  We walked up to the front desk troll and handed him our guest passes with all the confidence we could muster (which was look at our feet and hope for the best).  He again told us that we cannot use them without a member and I said, "W-w-we got these at a j-j-job fair."  He looked at them, frowned and said with a shrug, "Fine.  Sign in."  My mom and step-dad, who were standing the foyer not far off, silently walked out and left us to work out.  It was only after we were in and getting a locker that Kelly pointed out that I said Job fair and not health fair (It’s fun to stay at the Y-M-C-A!!)

will work 4 abs...

The Setting: It was the Spring of 2010. The two of us had begun taking casual walks around our neighborhood when we got home from work. Did we mention we live on the same street? We know, it's awesome. The walks started as a way to catch up on each other's lives (and to get Lori's dog Rollie some exercise) and quickly fed our desire to be fit. We weren't just satisfied with "being able to button your pants without crying" fit. No... we wanted to be really fit. We dreamt of a day when we could run a 5k comfortably, and without being chased. We were determined to make that dream a reality. So much so, that we quickly set a date to run our first 5k together. The date was June 5th...just a few weeks away. And if that wasn't crazy enough, we also signed up for The Girlfriend Bike Ride set for June 19th. We were committed and we had a plan! Things always go according to plan, right?

Anyway, the tales of those races are for another day. This first story, as told by Lori, takes place a few weeks after our inital declaration of fitness.

Coming soon....