Put A Ring On It

You know when you go to the gym and see those girls doing workouts, inevitably with a trainer, that look so impossibly difficult and so agonizingly unpleasant that you can only hope they're doing it in preparation for their upcoming nuptials? They're always balancing their abs over stability balls and lunging 47 laps around the weight room and doing horrible things that make you think "I might be okay with spending the rest of my life with my cat, if that's what goes into preparing for a wedding." That is exactly what I was doing in PT yesterday.

The good news is that both my IT band, which was the victim of my New Years Eve slip-and-fall, and my abductor, which went all crazy and overcompensate-y after the IT band shit the bed, have both been feeling great. Through mile repeats, tempo work, and an 18 miler last week, I had no problems at all. The bad news is that, since doctors encourage you to keep doing the therapy even after the pain subsides (I suspect this has something to do with co-pays), Mary the physical therapist has really been putting me through the paces of late. In part, I actually enjoy it; Mary is a Boston marathoner herself, and I believe her when she gets all fired up and says "Claire, you'll be thanking me in April, because this is going to help you kick ass up those hills!" But there is also a not insignificant part of me that wants to never go back to PT again. And that is the part of me that is having difficulty sitting up today because my abs are so sore.

Yesterday, Mary went full out psycho on me. First, she made me get on the stability ball for some "core work." My core is made of cupcakes and Guinness, neither of which are capable of doing any work at all, so it was unclear what Mary was expecting of me, but whatever. I lay down across the top of the ball and immediately had a flashback to nursery school, where we had those huge rubber balls on the playground, and I lay across the top of one exactly as I was doing in the PT studio, rolled forward, and smashed my face into the ground, giving myself a bloody nose while simultaneously thinking "My mom is going to be so pissed when she sees how much I just bled onto this pea coat." But, there in the studio, I overcame my fear and positioned myself on top of the ball.

"Now, bring your legs into your chest," Mary said. I assumed she meant to add "while leaving them on the ball," because had I just taken my legs down, it would have been easy enough for even the cupcakes and Guinness to accomplish. But I did as I presumed she wanted, and as I had seen those girls in the gym do, all the while looking down at their glinting engagement rings and thinking "this is worth it." I looked down at my unmanicured fingers and thought "Mr. Meowser and I are going to have a beautiful life together."

By the third rep, I was experiencing whole body shakes and sweat was pouring off my head (see image above). "Looks great!" Mary said. "Do 20. THOUSAND!"

Next, Mary wanted to work on - no, that's not right. Mary wanted me to work on. Mary doesn't work on anything during our little sessions except her voice, which I will admit is rather soothing in the context of so much physical exertion. And sometimes she also works on her hand strength when she uses her bear claws to massage me. Anyway, Mary wanted me to work on my walking lunges, which are good for both my piriformis (that's in the hipus assimus region), and my core. But since I had demonstrated my ability to semi-successfully complete walking lunges on my own already, Mary wanted to add resistance. Specifically, her resistance.

Mary strapped me into a giant ponytail holder, got in behind me, leaned back as hard as she could, and asked me to move forward, lunging, and then holding my foot up in the air when I brought it forward. This was made increasingly more difficult because my stomach was already so sore to the touch from the aforementioned stability ball work, so just buckling into the giant ponytail holder took a great amount of mental fortitude.

And so here we are today. Well, here I am. I have no idea where Mary is. Probably torturing some other poor soul. Just like that, she's moved on, while I'm stuck here, alone with my memories, and also with the enduring pain in my quads, ass, and stomach. I do all those pre-wedding exercises for her, and Mary doesn't even take me to dinner.*



*In all seriousness, Mary is a really rockin' physical therapist - so good, in fact, I'm underminding my own clever sarcasm and wit to add this here caveat. If you are in NYC and need PT, shoot me and email and I'd be happy to put you in touch.