Crazy Ex-Girlfriend

I am having this craving to go back to the gym. I haven't gone yet in 2007. The snow is making me hanker for the gym. I am getting more of my former self back and the fact of the snow is proof that time has passed and I am no longer in the same place. Progress has been made. Seasons have changed.

I was actually going to cancel my membership. I haven't done it yet. I didn't want to do anything rash. I have been a member of that gym since 2000. To cancel just seemed crazy. But I have never not gone for over two months. Never. If I was given access to my attendance record in the past six and a half years you'd see days where I went twice and you'd see a rare week when I went less than five times. In fact I could probably identify those weeks right now off the top of my head. I missed two weeks when I had my tonsils taken out in April of 2002. I missed another couple of weeks when I first injured my knee in April of 2004. Then I missed another couple after I had knee surgery in July of 2005. Other than that the gym was my religion for all the duration disregarding my eratic attendance between August and now. For much of that time, especially the beginning I did not accept my body's limitations AT ALL and was still going to the gym or trying to but usually not getting very far. Then I was on a crazy high dose of steroids and was at the gym at 6:30 every morning for wont of anything else to do with the time and my energy and mania. Gradually I got back into yoga in September of 2006 and slowly have been easing back into running but it's outdoor running I've been doing, never treadmill.

I joined the gym spontaneously. I used to run in Central Park often after work at the United States Attorney's Office, Eastern District. My friend Dallas was working at the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office and we'd meet up after work and go to the New York Sports Club on 73rd and Columbus and change and then go for a run in Central Park. She knew everyone there so they let me change into my running gear before our runs despite my lack of an actual gym membership. At a certain point I spontaneously joined. It made our runs a lot more flexible. And we could go spinning before or after. When I bemoan the loss of my 23-year old body I also bemoan the discipline I had. Part of me does at least and part of me now knows that working out makes me feel good. I do it purely for that now. I always did, even at 23 but at 23 there was more to it than that. It was partially the mania of being 23 that compelled me to do it; the insecurity, the fear about my future, the way it made me feel powerful and strong and in control, what I now know is all an illusion.

We had a run we called the Manhattan run that started at either her house or my grandmother's house (12th between first and second or 10th between first and second) where we skimmed the East River. We ran down to the Staten Island Ferry hugging the water as we talked about school and boys and who the best sex of our life was and why and traded crazy stories from before we knew each other in college. We'd run up the West Side, the Twin Towers dominating the skyline sheltering us from the rest of the city as we ran past the volleyball court and the beautiful boats and roller bladers and dog walkers and couples canoodling on the grass. We wondered what we were doing in law school. We'd get to Christopher Street on the West Side Highway and scrounge around for change and buy a gatorade and guzzle it down. Then we'd bear east and run back along 10th street to where we started. We passed this restaurant we always talked about going to and never did. Sometimes we'd go for a spin after that 9-mile run. Sometimes we'd get sushi and beer and marvel over what cheap dates the crazy running made us. Those were some fun days. Sadly my one-day older Libra sister, Ms. Dallas has arthritis in her knees and can no longer run. Gotta pour some beer out for the girl I always felt was the more condensed, real McCoy version of me. Blonder, taller, bigger boobs, greener eyes, longer legs, more freckles and skinnier. Cool as shit and more of a warrior princess than I am. She ran her first marathon at 17. She took the train alone down to North Carolina (correct me if I'm wrong, girl) and lied about her age so she could run it; you have to be 18, ran and got on the train and came home. She is a true warrior princess who more than me burned the candle on both ends and in between from running, drinking, trysts with boys etc all in a 24-hour period, the girl never stopped. Big up.

I went to the 14th Street New York Sports Club with Staten Island. That gym reminds me of Sundays and he and I meeting in the AM for brunch and them ambling around the city culminating with us going to the gym. Him to lift weights and me for my 5:15pm spin class. I would always get a bike near the window of the spin room and stare at him throughout the class. He was delicious. I loved watching him. But then reality would set in as we left the gym, went out to dinner and fought the entire time.

At the Wall Street New York Sports Club in April 2004 I fell and permantly damaged my knee. ( http://www.runningtimesmagazine.com/rt/articles/?id=3760&page=1 ) I did go back there. And I did run there again. What took me forever as C will attest was taking that escalator. That steep-ass escalator that I fell up. But we went there. I went there in the mornings before work at the big firm. I went there at lunch. On Friday evenings C and I were devotees of Rob's spin class. We'd trudge there in the snow past the stock exchange up the beauty wonderland that is Broad Street in the winter and then get to gaze at hot Rob for 45 minutes and go back to work glowing. I got my legs back there. I got my legs back. I ran again for the first time there. What miracle was the first one mile straight that I ran.

Then I spent a lot of time in 2005 at the 36th and Madison New York Sports Club. That was when I was working at the criminal defense firm. It didn't matter how much time I spent there; I could never spin fast enough, run far enough or lift enough weight to ever benefit from the transformative impact I usually got from going to the gym. In a Total Body Conditioning class one Monday night with a 10 lb weight in each hand, I kneeled down to do a squat and heard a pop and there went my knee. Again. Knee surgery followed soon after.

I could go on. I have stories about the two gyms near my house, Cobble Hill where I famously fell off the treadmill, not the first time I've fallen off a treadmill but the first time at a real gym and not the one in my parents' building. I have stories about the gym at Irving Place or the one in Battery Park or on Reade Street where I logged my fastest 5-miles to date, 39 minutes in the summer of 2001 and the gym in Forest Hills I used to sometimes go to when I worked at Legal Aid in Jamaica, Queens in 2002. Am I ready to quit?

I joined when I was 23, the summer of 2000. I am a different person now. I have let go of many other of that 23 year old's ideas and habits and hobbies and theories; why not one more? I am closer to 33 than 23; that speaks volumes. The truth is, I haven't gone in over two months. I don't know if I went in December. I didn't notice that I hadn't been in forever until the new year began. I told myself if I didn't go during January I'd quit. I didn't go in January. Then I gave myself February. Well February is almost up. And I bought myself (because I am so good to myself, carpe diem right?) a year of yoga so should I really be paying for both when I can run outside and haven't gone spinning or to any other class at the gym in ages? But what about the hankering I had for it tonight?

Bottom line is, despite the hankering I went running outside tonight; not to the gym. Bottom line is I am not 23. I am 30. Maybe the gym isn't me anymore. Maybe the gym has gone the way of tube tops and arguing with my parents and doing nasty shots just to do them and smoking in bars and taking the train home at 4am and breaking night and closing out bars way too often and second guessing myself and doing things for the wrong reasons. Maybe I have become more organic and mindful in the way I like to exercise. Maybe I have just become more organic and mindful and let myself be, no longer forcing the gym on myself and putting the pressure on myself to run X miles a week, spin X times a week and lift weights X times a week. I am not down with the shoulds. I am down with doing what feels good. And lately that hasn't been the gym. It's been either the hot room and the focused movement of Bikram yoga where I found my eyes and finally accepted what I look like in the mirror or the cold air and beautiful cobblestone streets of DUMBO or 'No Sleep 'til Brooklyn' runs where I always find the missing puzzle pieces in my brain. I guess I'll have to have faith in my mindfullness and trust in the organic process it took me six and half years to learn to make my decision.