Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

I saw the advertisements for the new class on the gym doors, but it took me a month to try them. It was the kind of class that’s right up my alley. There is one treadmill that faces all the others where the instructor is. I’ve walked past that treadmill many times at the gym and it sat there as a reminder, “You should try that Trekking class.”

Of course, when I talked to Mike about it, he had a different idea of what it might be. “What is it? Do you do Captain Kirk impressions for an hour? Maybe everyone pretends that they are on the Enterprise and it has just been hit with phaser fire.” I barely chuckled at his witty jokes because the word “trekking” had already been embedded in my mind. It meant a new treadmill class that I’m a little scared of. It did not have anything to do with Star Trek anymore.

I finally tried the class two weeks ago when Mike was out of town. I didn’t have anything better to do that evening, so I decided to try the class. I tried to follow along with speed and incline as well as I could. I could barely walk the next day. The class kicked my butt.

Unlike the Cycling and Aerobic classes, which have their own rooms, Trekking is held in the cardio area at the same time that normal exercisers are there. If I arrive late, I have to beg a normal exerciser to go to a different treadmill so that I can see the teacher. That Cycling class was scary to me too. The room is dark and the teacher speaks in a soft, relaxing voice. It was totally different than what I expected.

The Trekking teachers speak more like the Aerobics teachers. They are very high energy and excited about the workout. Of course, by the end, they are sweating as much as we are, which is totally cool. It always thought that the Aerobics teachers were a little weird because the workout didn’t seem to affect them at all.

Even though I was in pain, I liked the class, so I went again last week and made sure that I took care not to overwork myself. I enjoyed it even more. There was a time when I said that I didn’t like group exercise. I thought maybe that the attraction for communal exercise was that special energy that you can get when you exercise with other people, but it’s not like that for me. I love this class because it pushes me to work harder than I would normally push myself. I might push myself too hard with this class. That’s a risk, but I might also achieve more than I thought I could.

I tried the Cycling class last week and enjoyed it also, despite the dark room and calm voice. I’ve gone to the Trekking class three times now and have decided to keep it in my weekly routine. So here I am, taking exercise classes when the old me used to hate them. I guess this is just another part of my transition.