Every journey begins with several hundred sweaty steps.

[captainsblog]

There's a certain weird irony in taking your first steps of a new fitness regimen, not in a gym, but in a liquor store. But hey, that's how I roll sometimes.

A friend of ours from church owns the store- it's in the plaza next door to our church building and his storefront is next to the still-abandoned Quickie Mart I mentioned here a few weeks ago. We try to get in there to support your local businessman when we can. After chatting and picking out a chardonnay, I noticed a flyer on his bulletin board: Summer Fitness Classes.

Usually, for me, "fitness classes" is a variation on "jumbo shrimp." It brings to mind an overenergetic, size-zero aerobics instructor in a headset, barking out rhythms that, not only can't I keep up with, I really don't even like to listen to. Working out has always been more of a sanctuary than a shared experience for me, and if I only did more of it, I think I'd be in much better shape.

This looked different, though. I keyed on the class size (small), the level (any), the location (almost walkable from our house), but especially the attitude. Sally's got some, but it seemed the right kind for me, so I emailed, and I began Tuesday, and continued yesterday, with what has turned out to be one-on-one instruction for a very reasonable price. The one-on-one part is just a happenstance of who signed up for what time, but even with a few other people, I think I'd be doing fine at it.

While she's fairly new to training other people, she plainly knows what she's doing. A teacher during the school year, she showed all the patience that a long-lost n00b like me needed to get through a combination of exercises that ranged from vaguely familiar to downright frustrating. Yet despite a lot of reservations on a lot of them, I found myself improving even by the third of three sets- even if that was from "thrashing around like a goldfish in a net" to "not falling on my ass." She's also not that far off in age from me- one of her kids graduated from high school the same weekend Emily did- so it's definitely not the 20-something-in-a-headset mindset at work here.

Since starting, I've found regular cardio to be a little more tiring (because I'm more tired, duh), but the same lengths of time on the elliptical are already burning slightly more calories and going slightly greater distance than I had been. I was also much less sore after the second class than the first.

There will be more to say about this as we go, which I may put on a separate reading filter for those who either would or wouldn't want to follow along. For starters, though, I feel a good sense of accomplishment and some optimism that this is going to, pardon the pun, work out.

And if you're in this area and looking for something along these lines, there's nobody else I can recommend any higher right now. Let me know if you're interested. Having to watch me the whole time is not required; she does classes at other times, as well.