"You're not regular!"

Pure bliss. It is true, it is rather decadent, I have just blown several prime morning hours on exercise--but though I have a ton of work I must & will do later, it is a holiday, so it seems at least mildly justified...

A great workout with M. at the gym. For some reason just particularly enjoyable--quite a bit of upper-body stuff that I am going to be regretting at tomorrow morning's swim workout, miscellaneous leg and other stuff that we often do, and then a demonically effective set of core exercises at the end, some new stuff: front plank with elbows on the stability ball and toes on the seat of that pecs/rear delt machine, that is enjoyably challenging; side planks on the ball; and a new exercise M. has been tweaking, it is a good one, it's a crunch variant on the ball that involves bringing up the torso and one leg at the same time...

But the funniest thing was the conversation we had while I was doing some leg stuff on the machines. He was looking kind of sheepish and confessed that the other day one of his clients threw up! It was his third appointment, M. kept asking "OK?" and the guy kept wanting more work, then suddenly it was all over!

(And M. said that the first time he himself worked out with a trainer, he threw up--he'd been working out for six years, he was far from being a newbie, but the trainer wanted to impress M. and M. wanted to impress the trainer and it was an unfortunate combination...)

The guy didn't think it was a big deal, but the good part of the story was that there was a woman watching who just launched into M. She said to him, "I am a mother and a teacher! You were just working him too hard! I've watched you here--you're not regular!"

(M. said she had been recently watching him run six-minute miles on the treadmill! Which caused her to say to him "You're an animal!" Which is not very complimentary, really--he is just very athletic and a hard worker!)

So we had a very funny and enjoyable conversation about this whole notion of "You're not regular!" The thing about fitness is that you can be a very ordinary person and keep working on it and then you're in fact not regular, but it is by work rather than innate talent. (It is true that M. is very genetically gifted also, but insofar as he is not regular it is really by application rather than by magical giftedness!)

Then I did 30 mins. on the bike at home. At first it felt like a foreign object, but I quickly remembered the feel of it--I like this bike, it fits me well, I am going to make this bike thing happen!

I was pondering this morning on the (freezing cold) walk back from the gym that I must just take this race in May very steadily, having mechanical difficulties for instance is the one thing most likely to throw me but that is the mental test, I will have a session soon with that road bike maintenance book spread out in front of me where I approach the question of how to take off the wheels and change tubes...