Two years ago, right around my 48th birthday I thought to myself, “OK, you’re going to be 50 in two years, why not make it your goal to be fit by 50.” I thought taking it slow and giving myself 2 years sounded reasonable. Well… here we are and I am a scant 6 months from my birthday and “fit” isn’t exactly a term I would use to describe me. Granted my husband, Bobby, and I started “running” in August, but I have not seen many changes to my physique.
So what’s a girl to do when faced with the passage of time and not getting any younger? Well, in my case, join a gym. When Bobby and I were training for our first 5k we talked about how we would continue to train once the weather turned cold. We decided he would join a gym and I would go to the Gault Recreation Track at the high school. But when he signed up at Stay Fit 24/7 (his friend, Dan Starcher has a membership there) he convinced me to to sign up, too. They give you a deal if more than one person in the family signs up.
It’s a nice, clean gym. I like that it is available anytime of the day. That provides Bobby and me with flexibility. It isn’t huge, but there are plenty of treadmills, several ellipticals and machines to use. But I have joined gyms before and did good the first few weeks — or even the first couple of months and then stopped going. So I was sort of questioning whether this time would be different.
Then I had my complimentary personal training session with Dayton Wright. Dayton is a good deal younger than me, but we hit it off right from the start. It was only a 30 minute session (which is plenty long enough for me!) but I could tell he had the right mix of encouragement and pushiness to get me to work hard. So when he told me about the introductory special of three 30 minute sessions for $60, I decided I would try the one thing I have never tried, but always secretly wanted to, working with a personal trainer.
Dayton has had me do incline push ups (for people who can’t do the real ones), bicep curls, squats, lunges, rowing, ropes, bicycling and some crazy core strengthening exercises. I leave the gym tired and sweaty and glad it was only 30 minutes. But I also think it was a good use of my time.
Since I joined I have had just two sessions, but Dayton has challenged me both times. I feel stronger already. I am hopeful that working with him will be the catalyst that will help me reach my fit by 50 goal. I also think that writing this and putting it on blog will help, too. I somehow feel I just got the whole world wide web to be my accountability partner. With you, Dayton, all the staff at Stay Fit 24/7 and of course Bobby, I am in a much better position to reach this goal than before. I will check back with you in a few months about this to let you know how close I am to making “Fit by 50” a fact.
