travels, races, and other musings

Have you ever taken a trip for a destination race? Ever driven a long distance to see a band you like? That’s the best way to describe Les Mills Live. It’s like a crazy rock concert where people lift weights, punch stuff, ride stationary bikes, and strike yoga poses. I’ve never seen anything like it.  When I heard that Les Mills would be having a “Les Mills Live” I literally had no clue what it was but people online seemed really excited about it and it sounded neat. Then they announced it would be in New Orleans. Cool, that’s actually not too far. An 8 hour drive from Austin. So I pitched the idea to Roger, who was fine with me leaving for the weekend to do this crazy thing. I asked some of my instructor friends here and not one of them was interested. Pretty sure the word “NOPE” was uttered by a couple. The pandemic will be waaaaay better by then (HA) plus LM was requiring that everyone be vaccinated. All will be well. (Spoiler alert: all was well. I didn’t get sick and unlike ou...

It’s the end of 2019 and I’ve got a shiny new BODYPUMP cert so my boss offered me a 5:30 AM class. It was brutal. I was setting multiple alarms, waking up repeatedly worried I was missing my alarm, coming home and taking naps. I don’t know how people work out at 5:30 AM. I trained that time slot a lot with CG as well and for a short time with an early AM cycle class when I first started with FC and hated it every time.  It was short-lived anyway, the time slot didn’t do well at FC and the class was dropped and I was back to no BP class. I continued teaching my other classes, subbing in for BP where I could, and hoping a slot would open up.  Then we all know what happened in spring 2020. I vividly remember my last cycle class. Hardly anyone was there and we were all super nervous and we knew shutting down was inevitable. We just didn’t know for how long. It was almost a relief when the gym shut down. I needed the time off. I was teaching 5 Cycle classes and 3 HIIT classes, plus...

Rejection and rejection, the road to Fitness Connection and BODYPUMP This past weekend was Les Mills Live and it got me thinking about my journey to this point and why I drove eight hours each way to do five workouts on a Saturday. In a way, I thought about it like a race, but I didn’t actually train for it. I mean, nothing other than my usual workouts. I did think about my nutrition and hydration and paced myself so that was similar. And it was definitely a destination “race” so it had that aspect. I thought it might be nice to step back and reflect. How did I get here? Well, no, not New Orleans on a Saturday morning, but how did I wind up on this instructor journey in the first place? I actually started teaching classes in the early 2000s when I was working for Apple. I want to say it was maybe around 2005 or 2006. It sort of happened accidentally and organically. I was just taking some indoor cycling at the Apple gym and the instructor was going on vacation and asked me to fill in. ...