The Poise of a Woman

Today’s episode of OSCBB is should have been brought to you by “POISE PADS”-

If you’re gonna be wet, it’s gonna be sweat.

There are only a few products I don’t purchase in generic form. I buy brand name fabric softner (cause I like the way Snuggle makes their Wild Orchid and Vanilla softner smell), Always Infinity Pads, and Kotex-rocket-sized-cause-I’ve-had-3-kids-Tampons.

Pretty much everything else in my house is an off brand.

Including my “I’ve got bladder issues” pads.

UNTIL TODAY. But I’m getting ahead of myself…

The morning started off as is customary in this house. Kids wake up, mom wakes up, mom wakes up the sleepyhead kid who is her mini-me, mom makes sure all children have had breakfast and are dressed appropriately, mom calls school weather hotline to assure kids “YES, you do have school today.” Stuff like that.

The kids are finally on the bus, and I start making coffee. Matt wakes up and stumbles about (neither of us are morning people) and gets into the shower. I start drinking coffee, and then get dressed for bootcamp. By then Matt is ready to roll, and we hop in the van so I can take him to work. (It is really sucky to be a one car family right now. Where’s the dislike button?)

I drop him off at work halfway across town, then come back home where I discover we forgot to get the trash cans out. Since our yard is slicker than snot- STILL- I fight the huge can brimming with waste to the street. I go back inside, suck down an additional cup of coffee, brush my teeth and head to the YMCA.

I got there and discovered we had moved from the small gym down to the life fitness room.

AKA: room with fluorescent lights and big honkin’ mirrors.

FANTASTIC.

Then I find out we are going to be doing kickboxing.

DOUBLE FANTASTIC.

Here’s the thing. I have yet to go to a Zumba class because I’m so gosh darn uncoordinated. Oh, I can dance if it’s choreographed (like when I was in Chicago, I practiced for HOURS at home to get the steps right. I need a couple weeks to pick it up.) And kickboxing requires one to know her left foot from her right without looking down at her hands and seeing which one makes an L.

I still do that.

But Abby, our fearless leader, seemed extremely excited about what we were about to embark on. So I threw caution (and common sense) to the wind and jumped in with both feet kicking. I got through the warm up no worse for the wear. And about the time I started to feel out of my element, Brandy rolled into class. (Remember her? Loogie queen? Man, I love that girl!) Now I had a witness to my crimes against kickboxing. Good gravy, were there “liberal interpretations” happening with me.

Abby said “kick front, jab, kick right, left hook!”

And I kicked front, stepped backwards, left hooked, and almost kicked Brandy in the face. We repeated this process over and over with several different variations, most of which involved me not knowing what the Sam Hill I was doing, and Brandy almost getting a free nose punch. Or kick. Good thing our friendship has lasted the test of time, or I might have lost a buddy today. I looked like a 4 year old girl trying to do karate. And acting like she knows how. Or maybe if she was doing karate as a zombie...

And THEN, we came to the bullet kicks. For those of you who are kickboxing impaired (such as myself) it kinda looks a little like this:

Except Abby would never let me lay down on someone’s lap. No I had to stand there, trying to balance on one leg while convulsively kicking with the other.

Here’s the problem with that- my center of gravity has drastically changed over the last couple of years. And because nature grew me to be aerodynamically incorrect, if I lean forward, I topple like a domino. Except that dominos are flat. I am NOT.

So I am leaning forward, trying to repeat kick 80 jagillion times in a row, and I made it to about 3 kicks. I stopped, got my bearings, and started to kick again. I then got 2 kicks before losing my balance. This was obviously not going to work. And I know part of the workout is using your core muscle group (aka: the muscles between your neck and your butt) to stabilize you. I’m all for modifying, but I felt on this one it would be like cheating.

We stopped kicking the left leg, and prepared to kick the right. GREAT. The right leg is my strongest to balance on. I admitted defeat and balanced myself on the wall. I then looked like I was (pardon my French) “air humping” the mural. And I know that because there were big honkin’ mirrors, and I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder. I will never do THAT again!

We got to the Abby Abs portion of bootcamp, and I tried to rectify the fact I had cheated by hanging on to the wall. To be honest, I don’t know if the other girls are doing what I am doing half the time. I just know that I keep moving, and if I can’t visualize a type of crunch, I double time the regular kind. And so far, Abby seems to be ok with that.

But when we got to the planks, I felt a little better. Brandy struggled with it too. We got to a minute (as you may recall, that was my record per the Planktastic Plankathon challenge a few weeks ago) but we had to WORK for that minute. And we finished Bootcamp.

Brandy and I were walking out together and talking about running. She and I are both worn out, exhausted, and ready to go home. That’s when this conversation took place.

Brandy: I need to run today.

Charlie: Me too. At least a mile.

Brandy: We should run together.

Charlie: We should!

Brandy: LET’S GO RUN A MILE RIGHT NOW.

And frankly, I was so swept up in the romance of it all (and who thought I would ever find romance in running!) that we walked to the above track. There was a slow movin’ fellow on there. So we went to the big gym. Basketball was going on. So we hit the dreadmills.

Truth be told, I knew I HAD to run a mile now, but if Brandy hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t have run. Also in the truth department is the confession that my goal was to finish at the SAME TIME AS BRANDY. Brandy has run quite a bit. I run not such a bit. And I knew I would have to hussle.

I set the speed on 4.6, which is pretty much my top speed at home, and started to run.

Step, step, dribble. Step, step, dribble.

I cranked the speed up to 5mph.

Step, step, splash. Step, step, SPLASH.

Yeah, I should have peed before hand. Remember when I said that I buy generic stuff? Well, I got the off brand of the Poise pads, trying to save a buck. And as my pants got wetter, I realized that Poise pads are worth the extra few cents. Cause this generic wasn’t doing a bit of good.

I turned the speed up to 5.2. I was running really fast now!

“Brandy, I’m gonna wet my pants! But if I stop now, I won’t finish!”

Brandy, being the dear person she is, replied, “I’ll pretend like it’s sweat.”

And I kept running. I turned the speed up to 5.5mph. Funny thing is, I could never do this at home! But I was gonna finish at the same time as her.

Step, step, wet. Step, step, WET.

I had less than a 10^th of a mile left, and I realized I could get a 10 minute mile if I amped up the speed. So I did.

5.8 miles an hour. A new record!

I finished the mile at 9 minutes, 45 seconds (which I never thought possible since my first mile ever last fall was 14 minutes and then some!) but I had done it.

I stopped the dreadmill and eased off it. Brandy mentioned something about running to the bathroom, but there was no running left. I had to do the funky cross-legged walk of shame. And my pants were SOAKED.

And THAT, ladies and the few odd gentlemen who actually read my blog, is why I will never ever ever purchase generic bladder pads again.

But hey-

That’s just my two cents…