What A Difference A Day Makes

I'm a runner. That statement tends to carry immediate connotations spanning the spectrum from dedication and endurance to stubbornness and arrogance. Most runners, once they've adopted the label, will run through anything: injury, rain, snow, sickness. Running makes everything feel better, and once you're a runner, no other form of workout can satisfy.

Well, I found one thing that I can't run through: pregnancy. Within the first few weeks of growing this adorable parasite, I noticed that running takes too much out of me. Recovery from a simple six mile run took a day or two, and it just didn't feel good. Coincidently, about the same time I accidentally got pregnant, I also got a gym membership. At first I did the elliptical machine while listening to Pregtastic, the informative pregnancy podcast, but eventually the bonding hormones that are heightened during pregnancy led me over to the group classes. The variety of classes, and the chance to dance around for an hour somewhere else besides my living room and the Blues bar kept me coming back on a regular basis. The downside: one of the reasons that I like running so much is that it's on my own schedule, so, naturally, I find it quite challenging to make it through the door on time. (Add to this the fact that these classes start as much as 10-15 minutes late or early--gym clock, not mine.)

Yesterday I thought I was going to my first Zumba class, a cardio workout set to Latin beats. I rushed over to the gym and walked into the group workout room at 9:01 to find that Step class was already well underway, and it was packed. There was one spot left, in the front, right under the speaker. Trying to be flexible and up for anything, I set up my step and joined the workout. Everything went well for the first half of class. The moves that I had learned fifteen years prior while a teenage aerobics junkie paid off. But the steps got increasingly more complicated, the commands more vague, and under the blaring speaker, trying to distinguish what the instructor was saying and what that meant, I stumbled through the second half. It is important to note that I was indeed not the only one who was lost. About 80 percent of the crowded class of gym members were lost as well, and that made Doreen mad. It started with little comments about charging people extra for individual lessons, and progressed until, during a water break, I asked her apologetically if she would mind turning the music down a notch. She told me not to work out under the speaker. I apologized again, told her not to worry about it, and explained that since I was late, that was the only spot available. During the next sequence, she forgot to say a command and explained away her error saying that her mind was wandering, she was thinking about how "if you don't like the volume level, you shouldn't pick a spot under the speaker." She continued with comments about how she didn't understand how people couldn't keep up with her choreography, how she had kept it "simple" for the new people, and how the most important thing is "to have fun," and she should know because she "does this ten times a week." Many of us were trying our hardest, but from the vibe in the room, people were not having the fun she spoke of. I cried in my car.

I almost didn't go to a class the next day. It didn't seem worth the emotional turmoil. But, I wanted to try Zumba, so I drove to class 20 minutes early and waited for it to start (surprisingly on time). I introduced myself to the instructor, Glo, after she greeted me with with a hearty "Beunos dias! How are you doing this morning!? I just woke up and now I'm here and it's going to be a great day!" and asked her to include modifications for pregnancy. She warmly explained how she gave commands in the class, and a diverse mix of young and old gym members filed in. That's when the party started. Glo didn't do much talking during the songs, and when she did talk, she did so both in Spanish and English. Mostly she instructed through hand motions, then threw in extra spins and hip movements, waving her head around capriciously with a huge Latina smile. Everyone was into it: the old Chinese lady that I recognized from hip-hop class, the 12 year-old Hispanic girl and her mother, the intense workout divas, and the one other white girl. We were having the time of our lives, and Glo was our convivial, fearless leader. At the end of class, after we all cheered, she turned out the lights, put on "Boom-boom Pow," and told us that this was our personal dance party. She wasn't kidding. We stood in a circle and let loose, moving in whatever way we felt. She started a party line through the middle of the circle, and, one by one, each of us sported our dance moves in the dim light of the workout room, shouting and clapping, spinning and stomping, getting that boom-boom-boom. Afterward, when I was grabbing my purse, Glo came over to me and asked, "how did you do, mamcita?" I suppressed the urge to hug her as I thanked her for the workout.