Masochism

I can barely walk this morning – noooo not for THAT reason. Honestly, minds out of the gutter you dirty buggers!! Ha I wish. No, nothing so fun, I went to a body sculpting class last night. It was the first time I’d been to the gym in about a month. I’m usually a fairly regular gym goer, but work has been so busy lately that I’ve been in the office until 9 or 10pm every day. Instead of working out I’ve been developing a very close personal bond with the office vending machine. It’s not pretty.

Last night I got the opportunity to leave a little earlier and decided it was high time to get off my lazy arse and get myself to New York Sports Club pronto. I left the office at 6.45pm for the 7pm class at the nearby gym and felt like I was sneaking out of work early. Sigh. I remember the days when I used to leave on the dot of 5.30pm. I miss those days. I’m not by any means a live to work person. My work idol is my previous boss, Kimberly, who when asked about her “5year plan” for her career told her manager that her goal was to work a 4day week. Ha ha. And now she does. She’s got her priorities straight that one. I’d love nothing more than to work 9-5pm everyday, take an hour off for lunch and never work a weekend, but unfortunately that’s not going to happen any time soon, since we’re understaffed and in the midst of a hiring freeze and my conscience won’t let me skip out without making sure everything is done. Sometimes I hate myself for being such a goody two shoes.

Anyway back to the exercise…I’d never been to this particular instructor’s class before, but I knew he must be good from the long line of people waiting to get in. When the preceding class ended there was a near stampede for the door with everyone jostling to get a spot. I squeezed myself in to an available space at the back of the studio and waited for the class to begin.

It was different from the usual body conditioning classes I’ve been to in that we didn’t exercise specific muscle groups in isolation, but rather multiple parts all at once - very efficient - so instead of just doing squats to tone our tushes, we’d squat and then come up and do a shoulder press with alternating leg extensions, or plié squats with bicep curls and heel raises to tone our inner thighs, bums, biceps and calf muscles. There were also no breaks in between, so each exercise flowed into the next. It was hard. The instructor had some sort of name for the type of exercise we did, but I was too busy making up names for him to remember what he called it.

It was exhausting and after 4 or 5 sets of doing combination moves I sneaked a look at the clock. Big mistake, I was dismayed to see it was only 7.20pm. A mere 20minutes of the class had gone by and I was already fit to drop with another 40minutes to go. The girl behind me walked out about half way through, but I stuck it out. Today I’m paying the price. However I ache in a virtuous way, so I think I’ll go back for more punishment next week. I swear my arse is perkier this morning. If I keep taking his class my bum will be so firm I’ll be able to bounce tennis balls off it, should that be my want ;-)