The
Other Side of Fitness (1st set)
Scrapes
of the maintenance man's shovels echoed in the lot. It slept, around
my apartment, at 4 a.m. I followed by breath as though I did not
know, shaking off the shivers as I walked diligently into the night.
Streetlights found joggers' trails of air, the sound of snow
crunching on streets, leading them to the club. They were the same
faces that I saw everyday. I walked past building security, through
back matter where facades did not know. I passed dumpsters where
divers so often sheltered so the wind could not blow. And then he
club stared out with its red neon signage, its eaves that swirled in
flurries of snow.
From
the winter of 1996, and continuing for the next 8 months, I was
employed at a health club. I checked the Ph and chlorine level of the
pool. I cleaned exercise machines. Questions wrapped in bitches (from
those wrapped in towels) always seemed to land on my ears. Most,
though, were from an old denizen, explorer for the perfect temperate
whirlpool, we came to call the ogre. At 5 a.m. I opened the club, and
from that hour until I was relieved I stood at the front desk. The
call was bound to come from the younger employee whose job I was
doing. Either they could not get in or their alarm did not wake them.
Members were in line chatting, visibly respiring, holding hangers on
which hung their work clothes, scattered down a partially shoveld
walk.
In
those days I was working out, training for competitive bodybuilding,
incrementally increasing the weight I lifted in low repetitions,
eating clean, low-fat frequent small meals. I knew what I took to
cultivate skeletal muscle. The GNC store next to the club was my
connection for whey protein. After a good hour and a half workout,
within 45-minutes, I had a tall glass of whey. I thought I could fell
the muscles doing their thing, repairing themselves, each fibrous
string doubling. It lasted as an after-burn, a glow, a high, a
weakness that made you stronger, bigger, if not physically,
psychologically and able to get in the gym and kick ass!
I
can't discount the logistical factor. My 34-year affair with
weight-lifting, fitness and finally bodybuilding was built in part on
location. In the early days I biked (see story “Exercising Demons”
in my upcoming book Finding me—and Them: Stories of Assimilation)
to workout at a YMCA or a real gym. When I lived in the Stevens
Community (read “A Gentler Place”) 4 days a week I rode a bus for
20 minutes down Nicollet to the Balleys in Richfield. But most of the
affair the club or gym was in close proximity. From 1995 to 2003 I
worked out at the health club in New Hope a block from our apartment.
In 1998 I began working at the location of Park Nicollet in St. Louis
Park. A Balleys was across the street.
For
me, the location of my place of work weighs heavily. This situation
precipitated my move to the Stevens Community. In 1990 I was hired at
a nursing home there and I did not want to commute from—Richfield.
(I was going back there almost every day as it turned out!) I walked
down my alley to get to that job for 4 years. So, the location of a
job more less dictates where I live. Maybe at this point I should
emphasize that I don't drive. I hate wasting time on a bus in transit
(did that many years), and Metro Mobility has a way of turning a 5
minute transitory ride into an hour long tour of the city.
The
health clubs, the proximity to them, was total serendipity. I did not
ask my interviewer where the nearest health club or gym was. The job
was always my first priority, although maybe not in the last months
of training for a competition. I had a work ethic that was
transferable. For 12 years it crossed the street with me from Park
Nicollet to balleys.
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