It's Just Aerobics

I hit the track at 6am this morning and ran 9 miles and then subbed a step interval class and a spinning class in the afternoon. Ooooh, I am feeling my age.

My legs felt like cement pillars during the step class, but I did my best to portray myself as an energetic individual whose sole purpose in life is to dazzle and inspire others to stay in shape.

One woman, who frowned the entire class (and that's OK), came up to me at the end and said, "You're so energetic." She did not say this in a complimentary way. She said it as though she found this extremely annoying. She said it as though she thought I was energetic just so that I could make her feel worse about how unenergetic she felt. She said it as though I had boundless energy and that I had never felt a twinge of muscle tightness in my life.

This was painful to hear. Much like when another woman once said to me that I was "just too happy."

Of course you can't tell them that you're exhausted, that your legs feel like lead, and that if you weren't obligated to teach, there was no way you'd have set foot in a gym.

And so I did my best to tell her that the members in class inspire me and give me energy, that I couldn't do it without her. She seemed to accept this with some satisfaction as she turned away and left me with one more class to teach.

FYI to you aerobics enthusiasts: we, the instructors, are generally not there to compete with you or make you feel bad by comparison. It's just aerobics and we are all just getting together to jump around in a group and take some of the sting out of exercise by socializing and having fun.

How happy do I sound now? Boy, I feel like the anti-aerobics instructor.

Must be time for bed!