Ever since the break up, it's been an easy relief to lose myself in working out. And don't get me wrong, I was active anyway: I ride my bike everywhere. I don't drive. To hell with that. To hell with everything.
But it wasn't enough. I mean, at first I just started going on longer rides on my own, when I wasn't heading to work, or to class. A fine distraction, and on the longer rides, I did find that my legs burned with exertion. I borrowed a friend's fixed gear bike to do some more training, and found the lack of coasting hard to settle in on at first, but welcomed the aches and cramps that welled up in my butt.
I joined the gym. It was the one that my friends go to, which is how I found out about it in the first place. Frankly, I could have just gone to the university rec center, but any more time spent on campus and I would have most likely gone crazy. I did go once, and ran into a former professor of mine. We nodded at each other without a word, and I watched him shoot basketballs wildly for five minutes before leaving. I ran into my ex on the way out.
I don't go to the gym when my friends do. It's fine seeing them here and there, and probably even nice to grab a cup of coffee with them when we do cross paths for that brief morning half hour before we head off to our jobs and classes.
I started with the elliptical, after hearing so much about it. And it was great, I won't lie, but I don't think there is much more to say about it. At least, not any more than has already been said. I also took a spinning class, figuring that it was close to home for me. It was something comfortable. I wasn't a runner, but I used the treadmills. I started swimming with a coworker once a week, barely keeping up with her.
Eventually, I even started lifting weights. I had never imagined myself doing so, or even wanting to do so. And yet, here I am in my bedroom with dumbbells at my feet, begging to stub my toe on some dark night after I stumble home from the lab bleary-eyed and smelling slightly of the beer I had on my way home.
There's a comfort in taking it out on my body. Or maybe it's a distraction. Equal parts of both, like counter-acting muscle pairs, pulling and pushing me towards blissful exhaustion. Without your body here next to me, my body has turned inwards, trying to build enough muscle mass to reconstruct a counter-acting body pair, something to fit together like South America and Africa swimming across the Atlantic Ocean into sub-equatorial embrace.
With each new muscle popping into definition, begging God to rip through my torso and remove a rib, I figure that I will finally be strong enough to lift up myself out of this ocean of lactic acid.
But it wasn't enough. I mean, at first I just started going on longer rides on my own, when I wasn't heading to work, or to class. A fine distraction, and on the longer rides, I did find that my legs burned with exertion. I borrowed a friend's fixed gear bike to do some more training, and found the lack of coasting hard to settle in on at first, but welcomed the aches and cramps that welled up in my butt.
I joined the gym. It was the one that my friends go to, which is how I found out about it in the first place. Frankly, I could have just gone to the university rec center, but any more time spent on campus and I would have most likely gone crazy. I did go once, and ran into a former professor of mine. We nodded at each other without a word, and I watched him shoot basketballs wildly for five minutes before leaving. I ran into my ex on the way out.
I don't go to the gym when my friends do. It's fine seeing them here and there, and probably even nice to grab a cup of coffee with them when we do cross paths for that brief morning half hour before we head off to our jobs and classes.
I started with the elliptical, after hearing so much about it. And it was great, I won't lie, but I don't think there is much more to say about it. At least, not any more than has already been said. I also took a spinning class, figuring that it was close to home for me. It was something comfortable. I wasn't a runner, but I used the treadmills. I started swimming with a coworker once a week, barely keeping up with her.
Eventually, I even started lifting weights. I had never imagined myself doing so, or even wanting to do so. And yet, here I am in my bedroom with dumbbells at my feet, begging to stub my toe on some dark night after I stumble home from the lab bleary-eyed and smelling slightly of the beer I had on my way home.
There's a comfort in taking it out on my body. Or maybe it's a distraction. Equal parts of both, like counter-acting muscle pairs, pulling and pushing me towards blissful exhaustion. Without your body here next to me, my body has turned inwards, trying to build enough muscle mass to reconstruct a counter-acting body pair, something to fit together like South America and Africa swimming across the Atlantic Ocean into sub-equatorial embrace.
With each new muscle popping into definition, begging God to rip through my torso and remove a rib, I figure that I will finally be strong enough to lift up myself out of this ocean of lactic acid.
