Gym Star

Hacer ejercicios… This could be its own category entirely.  The first day I ran around Granada, a day last week, my run turned into a series of sprints—the park was much smaller than I was prepared for and doing intervals was the only way to keep myself running.  The next day when I pulled off the trail to do some push-ups and sit-ups, with the strange looks I was getting you would have thought it was completely unreasonable to be exercising at the park.  Well, maybe it is and I just don’t know it yet. 

Today was the first day I tried out the gym down the street from my homestay.  First of all, the point needs to be made (as humbly and modestly as possible, mind you) that I have been complimented several times on my capacidad to speak and understand Spanish (thank you, Spanish teachers I’ve had for the past nine years, for drilling vocab and grammar into my head and thank you, studious Kate, wherever you are now, for once studying so much and miraculously remembering almost as much now). 

However, talking with local receptionists at the gym is an entirely new story.  I turn into someone who might as well be speaking Chinese. 

Today being my first day actually entering into the part of the gym with the class studios and weights, this aside, it’s mentionable that I have been in the gym three times before this day attempting to talk to the receptionist about how much it would cost to join, how much it would cost a student at the University of Granada to join, the different classes offered (they do spinning here, too, and it’s called “spinning”), and what’s included with a membership.  I wanted to ask for her personal opinion about how sorely I would stand out as an American in a tiny gym with lots of people waiting their turn to use mats and weights and machines, but since I didn’t know the most polite way to ask this, I refrained. 

So I finally made it inside.  It has been a long time since I felt as nervous as I did in that moment.  Lots of other people were standing around the desk watching me struggle (I managed to pick the busiest time of day to try to get in), and in my head they were all snickering at me and my American pronunciation and voice and gym clothes, and of course I forgot my lock for the locker that was so kindly provided, and of course I mistakenly used the towel they gave me at the front desk to mop up the water I spilled out of the sink when trying to refill my water bottle before finding, almost immediately after, a water fountain with a spicket precisely for refilling water bottles, and of course I later was the only one in the spinning class without a towel, and of course I was also the only one sweating as profusely as it is possible to sweat, and of course I could keep going but I’ll, once again, refrain. 

It could have been a comedy show.  Before the spinning class started, I took several minutes testing out the hand-held weights and medicine balls on the main floor.  What I failed to remember is the metric system… I went for my usual 10-pounders and very quickly realized that they were 10-kilogrammers.  *NOTE: According to Google, 1 pound = 2.20462 pounds* …the best thing I’ll get out of this is sore arms, something I’ve been waiting for since I arrived here. 

Going in for my spinning class I was slightly more confident since I’ve had years of multiple cycling classes a week to give me the experience I need to blow people’s doubts off the bike when they first look at the skinny white girl with running shoes instead of cycling shoes climbing onto a bike.  What I again failed to remember was that the entire class would be conducted in glorious español and therefore I’d need to stare incessantly at the people next to me to copy from them what we were actually doing.  Don’t do anything American, don’t speak unless spoken to, stop sweating so much, I am sweating so much, don’t do anything American… these were all thoughts running through my head—in Spanish, thankfully, because that might be enough to preserve a small spoonful of my pride after this hora y media at the gym. 

Inevitably, I am one hundred percent sure that the cycling teacher quickly saw through my quiet, don’t-make-eye-contact disguise.  Within 10 minutes he was counting down our sprints as “three, two, one, let’s go!” instead of “tres, dos, uno”… oops.  I’m pretty sure I also heard “la chica americana” at least once, not to mention he had to point right at me after one of the climbs and tell me to get in the ritmo of the music.

By the time I left, both looking and smelling like a wet dog—worse than the ones on the street without a leash—by the time I left I still had the same endorphin high I get from going to the gym in the States.  It’s hard to say how much of my racing heartbeat came from the adrenaline of being the new kid on the block playing hide and seek or from the intensity of the class.  Either way, I am proud to have understood and therefore learned new words for exercise motivation: Siéntete las piernas… están en fuego! –made me want to go faster to make my legs burn more; prepárate la carga, which made me feel like a bolt of lightning as I imagined readying to charge; and somos un equipo y buen trabajo, followed by a round of applause at the end all helped to bring my athleticism back to the control tower of my body, kicking my inhibition from lack of language skills to the back of the gymnasio.

Conclusion: success!

Decision: to join the gym or not to join, and if I don’t, which gym will be the next victim?  Or, better asked, will it be the gym or will it be me as the victim?  Or, more interestingly asked, which way will build more endurance for my throbbing, exercising heartbeat?