Leader of the pack
I grew up in a time when sport bras barely existed; certainly not for d-cups. Sneakers didn’t have shock control and they had little arch support. Well, at least not where my parents shopped. These factors, combined with allergies, made me a hater of gym class.
There were two times a year when I really wanted to skip school just to miss gym and that was during those god forsaken Presidential fitness tests. Girls, you remember, the flex arm hang where you’d try to keep your head above the bar. I was good for about three seconds. But my least favorite test was the 440 run. That one lap around the track made my lungs burn, my nose run, my boobs hurt, and my ankles ache. I was never a runner.
Imagine me 30 years later in a fitness bootcamp. I was nearly paralyzed the first day when the major blew his whistle and we started running down Wilshire Boulevard at 6 a.m. My eighth grade anxiety set in. Armed with great shoes and a killer sport bar, I went as far as I could. I could go miles on the elliptical or treadmill at the gym, but there was just something about hard pavement and bus fumes that made it more difficult.
Three weeks later I was at the front of the line up and made it all the way on a half-mile warm up jog around the LA County Museum of Art. I tried to hang back so I wouldn’t hold up the fast people; however, the major pushed me and I was the pace setter.
I made it, but those magical endorphins never arrived to supply me with a runners high. All I could think about was, “wow, my mother could of never done this at my age.” So, my mindset was not back in eighth grade thinking about my 80 pound classmates who could flex-arm hang for 45 seconds. Nah, my athletic competitive benchmark is just living better than my parents.
If that’s the case, I think it’s cocktail hour.