Changeable.net

Sometimes I pretend that I am still an athelete. I talk about going to the gym and feel good about myself for going to my workout class and whatnot, but today it finally ocurred to me what a joke it all is!
I briefly talked with one of my co-workers this past weekend about the good ol’ days in cross country (woohoo!) and track (EW!), because we ran some of the same courses, having gone to school not too far from each other. I was thinking more about those days this past weekend and I cannot believe how in shape I used to be! I certainly was never one of the TOP runners, but I still did the same workouts… I would run as much as 8-9 miles a day (minimum of 3) during the week, have races on Thursdays and Saturdays, and only rest up on Sundays, my day off from running. I would work real hard… and throw up several times throughout the season, have to get my shins taped up to keep the shin splints at bay, and go through several pairs of running shoes each year.
Sounds good, right?

Now, however… I am out of breath by the time I run to the gym. Once I get to the gym, if I actually choose to run, I will only run like 2.5 miles at most and it will take me thrity minutes. AND I will be dead tired because of it. Normally I’ll just do cycling instead, but I mostly just sit there, pedaling ever so slowly while staring at the personal television screen in front of me (the gym here at school is really nice) flipping from channel to channel.

Yes, I go to a workout class here, but… I choose the easy modifications for each exercise and sometimes just lay on the mat looking dumb and hoping the chick who teaches the class doesn’t see me while everyone else is working on those guts, butts, and thighs.

All of this just occured to me today while I was watching my roommate do a bunch of sit-ups and I was pretending to stretch. Then I looked down at my shoes and realized that these shoes are horribly old. Like. They were bought in the summer between my sophomore and junior year of high school (I quit running that summer). Which was like. 4.5 years ago. Oops. (And whoa I just made myself feel old.
So yes, I am going to blame my laziness on my shoes. And since I am not shopping for a year… I guess I will have to take it easy until January 2008, out of respect for my poor feet that have to be protected from harsh workout conditions.

With this new mindset, maybe I won’t try so hard in Butts, guts, and thighs, because man, last week when I started to see black spots and worry about passing out… that was a bit embarassing.