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May 22, 2005
PFit 
Usually, after a long walk, I sleep like a baby, but not this time. My legs couldn't get comfortable, the cat was in my spot, blah blah blah—things that happen every night, and I usually can go right to sleep. So I was loathe to get up Saturday morning to go to PFit.
But I got up, and I got going, albeit, really really slowly.
I saw the faster walkers going out as I pulled up, and I coulda caught up with them, but I decided against it. Sure, I think I would have felt pretty good after I got the first couple blocks in, but I did do 21 miles the day before. So I parked the scoot and went over to help the main folks set up.
I helped out but there wasn't a lot to do right then. Holly came over and so we hung out and did her groups warmup, which was hardcore. There were these one-legged shiva squats—oh, my g-d, I don't think I'll ever be able to do those!
After they took off, I helped breakdown the tables and giant water containers, and put them in the truck so we could move them two blocks away. There are pluses and minuses to the new location, but I think having to set up and break down twice has to be a con. And then, we set up again.
We had talked about all going to get coffee, but once we got set up, people were beginning to come in, so the folks-in-charge stuck around, and Eric and I went to get coffee for all of us. I had never really chatted with him, even as he has been a hero to me forever. I remember during both of the long benchmarks last year, him riding by on his bicycle, checking on us slow-bots, which I so appreciated.
I told him about the Gorge Marathon and he was impressed. Immediately, I thought, shit, maybe I'm biting off more than I can chew here!
We brought back the drinks, and began setting up the t-shirts, and well, that's what I ended up doing for the next hour or so. We had womens shirts, which ran really small, and mens shirts, that ran rather true. The woman I was working with was wearing a women's XL—and she was tiny—while I was wearing a men's XL. So about every second minute or so, one of us would pipe up with "I'm/she's wearing a womens XL, and she's/I'm wearing a men's XL, so there is a bit of a difference".
It was comical. People would block others, trying on the shirts right in front of us. Or, they'd wear the shirts for a while, and then decide to try a different size (uuoooock!). Skinny people would ask for 2XLs, while fat people, who might not even fit in a 2XL, almost universally asked for an XL.
I finally ducked out to do a very gauche thing—to get a free 5 minute massage. I'm unclear whether us ACs get to take advantage of that, but I decided I would do it anyways. The massage tent was hosted by the folks from my sports chiro office, so my sports chiro worked on my calves. We talked about mechanics—did that calf tightness mean a muscle imbalance, and he said no, that it was probably just from a long hilly walk.
He introduced me to someone and said right off the bat that I was going to do the Gorge. Ack! The person said, wow, and my doc said, ah, VJ here is a machine! She'll have no trouble. Oh my gosh, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
I stopped off to see Greg, the exercise guru, so we chatted a bit. I love seeing these guys outside of the office. I helped him break down his massage table, and then, all the PFit stuff was down too, so I took off. What a nice morning!
Posted at May 22, 2005
Comments
I think people obviously are impressed with your abilities. And if they had any doubts about you, they would probably get this worried concerned look when you told them about the marathon. Sounds like they see the "machine" in you that comes out very clearly here in your blog. Be happy, VJ. You are gonna just destroy that marathon. :)
Posted by: Jon in Michigan at May 22, 2005 5:08 PM