My resolution to work out every day in January is going pretty well so far. As I learned on Commitment Day (aka January 1st), it’s a lot easier to get yourself to do something when you commit to it and don’t give yourself any excuse to drop out. Drink too much on New Year’s Eve? Well, you already signed up for the 5K, so you have to do it. Exhausted from early morning flights? Too bad, you told your friends you were going to Flywheel. I announced here on my blog that I was going to work out every day for at least ten minutes – and so, it shall be done. Even Friday morning, when I was still way too sore from my first Refine class to even think about weight lifting, I ended up doing 10 minutes of yoga to stretch me out followed by some foam rolling. January goal, I am a-coming for you!
Today, I committed to doing a 30/30 class at Pedal NYC. Pedal happens to be right near my apartment, so I’ve gotten to know the main instructor, Mr. Ray, quite a bit just by seeing him in the neighborhood. (Ah, NYC, you can be such a small place at times!) His 30/30 class is alternately awesome and killer – 30 minutes of spinning (with some excellent tunes to pump you up as he goes around the room providing encouragement) followed by 30 minutes of TRX. It was today’s TRX that really inspired this post.
We were alternating 30 seconds of squat/rows on the TRX with 30 seconds of wall sits, and I was on my second round of wall sits. The first round had already been killer – my quads were what had been hurting so much after Refine, despite any attempts to stretch/foam roll them out – and I had barely made it to the end before having to use my hands on the wall to help me stand up. But as soon as I went down for round two, Mr. Ray came over and sat on my lap. Yikes! I thought that he was just teasing me and joking around and would get up after a few seconds, because I figured there was no way I’d be able to do this for the whole 30 seconds. Nope! He stayed sitting on my lap the entire time. But the joke was on me – I was completely shocked to find that my legs did have the strength to hold us both up!
I guess I should have learned that lesson from my marathons: nothing is impossible. After all, I went from not being able to run a mile to running over 85 marathons – who would have thunk? But somehow it took that 30 second wall sit to show me that I am much stronger than I think I am – and perhaps all it takes is some sort of extra push to help me see what I can do. That’s why I love group fitness: if one person pushes themselves, and others are inspired to do the same, it becomes this big cycle of seeing just how far you can go, with each of you trying to outdo the others. Result? You learn exactly where your limits are… and probably find that they are much further than you think.
Now, to remember that lesson when I go for my second Refine class tomorrow…