The Other Side of
Fitness (3rd set)
Time won't wait,
so priorities change. The amendments are circumstantial, logistical,
physical or financial in their inclinations. In the winter of
2009—when it was the most daunting for me to walk to LA Fitness—the
Balleys club in St Louis Park closed. Its members transferred, their
accounts were honored at the new club. At first their single-tracked
slicked salesmen tried to sell me as if I was fresh off the street. I
think I paid an initiation fee that was eventually refunded after
legal threats. I had been a loyal member of Balleys since 1989 and
for many years had been paying $5.35 a month. I got that rate.
The initial
thrill of competitive bodybuilding had worn of long ago. I had
achieved the gold at the 2001 natural amateur Olympia. I had been to
the top of that very unprofessional mountain once and had done what I
did, what I, for whatever reason, wanted at that point in my life. I
was getting a very political vibe in the whole ABA (amateur
bodybuilding organization) that felt very disingenuous. I had long
suspected that for the physically challenged division, which was
quite new—anywhere—when I began in 1997, it was not really
understand how to fairly judge athletes with disabilities, the
'challenges' that made training harder for them. I lost my first
competition to a lower uni-lateral amputee who was less defined. My
challenge is symmetry and I don't think that was ever
understood or factored into the judging.
So that
competitive fire had burned out and, near middle-age, I was feeling
the singes it its embers. I really wanted to devote a larger part of
the day to writing and at least a half hour had been added to the
whole process of working out. I pay attention to time. I wanted to
have enjoyed some significant success as a writer by the time I was
50. All the factors weighed, they toddled meekly up to the scale,
accepting their weight with the dignity with which I had accepted the
judges decisions. For a month or so I did walk after work the short
distance through a back lot and down Park Center Blvd. to the club.
But I was no longer a V.I.P.
LA was probably
twice the size of Balleys. Members caught up with me eventually. It
was never the same though. I did not get the initial rush, the shot
of B-1 to my self-esteem. Any expertise of anything, any helpful
pointers I may have looked to have had, was lost in the enormity of
the club. Many more, intense, fit, personal trainers were working
there. One even looked like he may have had some chemical help in his
fitness from an third-party. The psychological draw for me was gone.
That winter I stood waiting for a bus down 36th street. I
took that back to a stop on Excelsior, back in front of Park
Nicollet, and usually waited 10 minutes for the 604 home. During the
months of training for a competition, when I got home after working
out I'd bike the 18 mile loop on the trail—stop the insanity! This
left time for dinner and a little vegging out before bed. I got to
where I'd only get to the gym 3 days a week, then two, and one.
Fridays worked in—and out—because I met up with friends at
Granite City. They were friends from high school or college. In all
the time I worked at PNC I never developed any level of friendship
with anyone, one that could stand the occasional demands having a
beer might require (they did all come for a signing when my first
book came out).
My weekends were
my only real writing time. Biking to the club on a Saturday (no
buses) all together is at least a two-hour production. The turn of
events, the situational factors, the chronological truths abetted my
setting of priorities. Everything that had motivated me to go to the
gym with the rigid reliability of a German train was gone. All that
remained was the nominal monthly charge for that membership (which
I'll have presumably until I cancel it). Money, or the lack of it,
can't buy esteem. I worked out Fridays after work for months in
prelude to my week's end at the bar. To be honest, that was the draw,
that and the slowly dying fire that kept me going there. I was
wearing out. Getting through a 1 and a half hour work out was not as
easy as it had been in 2002 when all the motivational factors were
there. I powered through, met up for my social outlet, and always
found my way at home.
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