Alrighty, DAY ONE is complete. But perhaps I should take you back to how it all began...
A little less than three months ago, a pair of completely opposite people were thrown together in a room, to work together - with only each other's company - day in and day out. One of those people was me, Ally, a technology-loving movie nerd who hasn't exercised in years. The other person is Mike, my fitness-fanatic, health-nut editor who can't quite work a computer properly but will still outlive us all.
And that's the problem. Yes, I may know how to work a computer better than the average person, but unless computers are plotting the death of us all, the people who spend their free time exercising or doing something active are going to be attending my much earlier funeral.
So after months of listening to Mike go on and on about going to the gym and going for a run and going to play tennis and going to play baseball and going to play volleyball and best of all, scolding himself for eating french fries at lunch, I had enough.
I decided I'm going to become the kind of person who can sprint up the stairs and still have a conversation with you when I get there instead of recuperating for 20 minutes. Or the kind of person who can change those giant water bottles in the drinking fountain at work without people pointing and laughing. That's the kind of person I want to be.
And that brings us to today. DAY ONE of my life coaching sessions with Mike.
When I came into the office this morning, I was a little nervous. Although we've only worked together for three months, I now know Mike well enough to know that if he gets the chance to make my life difficult, he'll take it. And not because he's mean-spirited, but because health and fitness just mean so darn much to him that he wants everybody to feel the same way about it.
He seemed like he knew exactly what my task was going to be as soon as I asked him - run four laps at an outdoor track without stopping and report my time to him. For comparison's sake, he let me know that the world record is three minutes and something, his own fastest time is six minutes and something and his lovely girlfriend's fastest time is eight minutes and something. As a former personal trainer, he's trying to see what my starting point is, so he can know what to tell me to do going forward.
He quietly added that this would be my assignment every Monday, run four laps around the track, without stopping and time myself. I think his intention is for me to see improvement in my time each week.
Little does Mike know that I haven't run anywhere... ever. Seriously. I don't run, I don't even really like to walk. But I sucked it up because, well, that's the point of this whole thing right?
He gave me some eating tips for the day too. For lunch I could go to Subway, get a six-inch sub on flatbread and avoid too much sauce. For dinner I could have meat, vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, and because I was running today, I could have a little bit of starch.
Well there was my assignment, and as much as I was looking forward to starting this whole life coaching thing, now that it was reality, I was regretting the whole thing.
---
DAY ONE UPDATE:
Alrighty, I'm back from my run, which was part walk but don't tell Mike because he specifically told me not to walk. Like I said before, I don't run, I was winded after a quarter track so he should just be impressed with how much I did run - I ran my whole first lap, and then walked half/ran half for the other three laps.
And my time? Well, it was a big fat 14:59. I give you permission to laugh.
I texted my time to Mike and while I'm sure he was giggling to himself and telling all his gym friends about the girl he works with who took 15 minutes to run four laps around a track, he sent me the following text message:
Ok well that's a start. Good work.
And that might not seem like a big deal to you, but knowing how badly he wanted to laugh at me, I appreciate it.
Now off to eat a Big Mac.
I kid.
