I’m not a completely unhealthy person. I may have stopped going to the gym after my freshman year at VCU, and I may thrive on a diet of Chipotle and Diet Coke, and I may only get about five or six hours of sleep depending on how late stay up binge watching Netflix in my pajamas; however, living in Richmond does require me to walk and if my classes are on the third floor of Hibbs I always make sure to take the stairs. So you see I’m not a completely unhealthy person, I’m just your everyday college student who sometimes needs to stop to grab some water after opening the ridiculously heavy doors in the Student Commons when the handicap button isn’t working.
Because I’m such a “healthy college student,” when my roommates (who actually are healthy as in “had their hands registered at the gym healthy”) suggested we try this cardio kickboxing class I signed up without hesitation. I had been a little stressed lately with sorority recruitment just around the corner, classes coming into full swing and my LSAT prep book coming in the mail. I thought it would do me well to go to the gym and take out some of my frustration on the air around me. After all, when I played soccer not too long ago, I was known for my illegal high kicks. So that Monday evening, I grabbed my water bottle and my new exercise fanny pack and headed to the gym.
After a slight hold up in arriving due to the fact that I had to register my name and type in the random number on the back of my ID (things were so much easier when I was a freshman and we just had to slide our cards), making everyone around me recognize how long ago it was when I had last been to the gym, we walked into the group work out room with a bunch of other college women ready for the work out of our lives. Our instructor came in in the most positive mood ever and I was feeling pretty darn good about myself for having actually worked up the motivation to go to the gym.
As the music started blaring and we started punching I felt like the biggest badass to grace Cary Street Gym. That lasted about 15 minutes of the hour. About 20 minutes in I felt like I was going to have a stroke, however after slinking to the side to sip on some water I was back in it. Some of my punches felt weak, some felt strong but 15 years of soccer had yet to fail me, as I was bouncing up and down my legs were flying everywhere and our instructor was giving us the motivation to take this semester by the horns and to take control of our lives and then I hit a wall.
The feet that had once earned me the affectionate nickname “Matrix” wouldn’t go any higher than my knee. My legs began to feel as heavy as lead and we still had 15 minutes left in the workout. I bent over, hands on my knees, wheezing for air, forgetting that when we needed to take a break we were supposed to jog in place. I looked all around me, at my instructor, at my roommates, at all the other women in the class kicking and punching in robotic unison and realized that I was the worst one. I went to the side, gulped some water then hopped back in; not quite in unison and not nearly as gracefully as some others, I squatted and hopped right into 7 o’clock.
At the end of the class I felt so empowered, even though I had failed miserably, our instructor congratulated us on the fact that we had had the ability to get off the couch and get to the gym in the first place. As soon as I got into my house, I collapsed on the carpet and didn’t move for an hour. I was so sore the next two days that even climbing into bed sounded like a challenge. But next Monday, I’ll be back for you Cardio Kickboxing, and one of these days it’s gonna be me who does the butt kicking.