Runner Joins a Gym
By Runner


 
        I've been an athlete most of my life.  Notice that I didn't say,
"Jock".  I'm a runner, and runners are
never called jocks. You are only a jock if you play a sport in which you
are most likely to break your nose, snap a leg, shatter an arm, wrench
your spine, get your teeth knocked out, or be permanently maimed by a
fast ball, tackle, elbow, or wooden implement.  If you have ever been in a
full-body cast, had a bruise that covered most of your head, gotten
slathered in spit (or other body fluids),  or been taken off the field in
an ambulance, you qualify as a  jock.
        Realizing that my sunset years were approaching, I decided to
re-enter the world of track and field.  Now
I've been running 5K races for years, but having begun my sports career
as a sprinter and long jumper, I decided to return to my speedster
origins.  And so it was that I hired a track trainer at my local gym and
began my long journey back to sprinting shape. 
        Now I have to say that I have an aversion to gyms and locker
rooms. I trace this back to my junior high
school physical education teacher who lined us up half-naked on our first
day of P.E. and proceeded to give us a stern lecture about the virtues of
athletic supporters (up to that time I had thought an athletic supporter
was a sports fan).  My mother had taken me to the local sporting goods
store to purchase this strange device that looked something like a pair
of jockey shorts that someone had seriously trimmed everything out of but
the crotch.  The salesman gave me a measuring tape and told me to measure
myself.  I looked at my mother uncertainly, and she said in a
confidential tone, "He means your waist, dear."
        Meanwhile, back in the locker room, the coach is marching back
and forth ranting and raving and pontificating about hernias and the
terrible things that can happen to loose testicles, while a bunch of
adolescent kids are getting tangled in their own jock straps and trying
to avoid genital strangulation.
        Getting back to my story, I was supposed to meet the track
trainer at my nearby gym, but when I got there I found that he had been
temporarily assigned to the women's gym about a mile away.  So off I went
for my first training session--with the women.
        I parked my car in front and timidly stuck my head in the door. 
"Are you looking for something?" a woman's voice said, rather hostilely. 
When I explained that I was there to train with the track coach, she eyed
me suspiciously and checked the FBI flyers on the wall to see if I was
listed in the "demented rapists" section.  Having satisfied herself that
I was not in the category of "Jack the Ripper", she picked up the phone
and made a brief call.  After several "uh-hums" and furtive glances in my
direction, she put down the phone and directed me to wait in an area
along the far wall of the huge workout room. 
       As I made my way to the wall, a rather buff, elderly lady came
lumbering by with a bar bell in her hand, and went over to the drinking
fountain.  Seeing that she could not press the button with the barbell in
her hand she turned to me and said, "Here, sonny, hold this for a
second."  She passed the weight into my awaiting arms and the next thing
I knew, I was plunging headfirst to the floor.  The woman looked down at
me in disgust, shook her head and mumbled what sounded like, "Wus",
collected the bar bell and walked away muttering to herself.
        At that point, my trainer came out of a private back room and
greeted me warmly.  He explained that he was working with a famous female
body builder and wrestler and took me back with him to meet her.  As we
entered the roomful of weights and benches and resistence machines that
reminded me of the rack, the pillory, and the iron maiden, I noticed in
the far corner a woman pumping what appeared to my mind to be a thousand
pounds!  As we approached, she lowered the weight and stood to greet us.
        She was about 6'1" (three inches taller than me) , I'd say at
least 200 pounds of solid muscle,  and about thirty years old. She was
wearing what appeared to me to be a comparatively small black
bikini--that is, compared to the mass it had to cover.  As we got closer
I saw that she was not particularly beautiful, but was attractive in a
strange combination of Cher and Janet Reno kind of way.  The trainer
introduced us and she took my outstretched hand and proceeded to make
oatmeal out of it.  I tried to hide the grimace, but the tears in my eyes
gave me away.  She had one of those one-name names--Kayla--and other than
her subtle enjoyment of my discomfort, seemed fairly pleasant...in a de
Sadian sort of way. 
        My trainer apologized and said that he had to attend to some
personal business, and asked if we could meet back here in a couple of
hours.  I said, "fine", and he excused himself and left Kayla and me
alone in the room.  I felt extremely awkward and out of place and was
trying to find a graceful way to extract myself when she suddenly asked
what had brought me to the gym.  When I explained, she said, rather
charitably I thought at the time, that she'd be glad to show me around,
and suggested that I get into my gym trunks and she'd lead me through
some easy weight training.  So off I went to find the men's room (there
was no locker room for men) where I slipped into my running shorts and
wended my way back to Kayla.
        She was flexing in front of the wall-length mirror and saw me in
the reflection.  She looked at my runner's body and made a quick
assessment.  "I guess you track guys aren't supposed to get too muscular,
right?"
         I explained that sprinters needed more of speed-strength and
flexibility.  She walked up to me and flexed both biceps.  "Feel these,"
she ordered.  They looked like two shot puts bulging from her upper
arms.  I felt them, timidly.  I was right.  They were shotputs.
        "Well", she said, "now what kind of workout do you want to do?"
        I explained that I wanted to find one good exercise that would
work as many muscles as possible.  I didn't want to have to go from
machine to machine or do twenty different routines. 
       She looked at me with what I thought was an unnecessarily amused
smile.  "Well, I can show you an exercise that works just about every
muscle you've got--the abs, pecs, biceps, deltoids, hams, quads--just
about everything.  Want me to show you?"
         If I have ever regretted saying a single word in my life, it is
when I said, "Sure" at that moment.
        Kayla walked up to me looking like an anaconda stalking a deer. 
There was a rather mesmerizing and terrifying look of seduction in her
eyes.  She came very close to me until we were only a couple of inches
apart.  I could feel her breath on my face.  She looked at me almost
affectionately with a kind of "poor baby" gaze as she scanned my face and
hair with her eyes.  She smiled slightly and I saw her entire body tense
and ripple as she quickly wrapped her massive arms around my body, pulled
me to her and lifted me completely off the ground in a ferocious bear
hug.  I heard myself involuntarily gasp a long "Aaaaaaaaah!" as she
squeezed me until I thought I felt my liver pop, and the acid contents of
my stomach shot into my mouth, while intestinal gas shot in the other
direction.  My entire torso flattened and collapsed against her granite
belly and breasts, and the air in my lungs emptied with a loud "Whoosh!" 
A million sparklers went off in my brain while lightning flashed across
my retinas as the pressure mounted and mounted and I could see in the
mirror that I was beginning to turn red, then purple, then blue.
        "You know," she grunted as she continued to press me deeper and
deeper into her mass, "I can hold this squeeze for at least four
minutes."  In my agony, I recalled them telling us in CPR training that
four minutes was the upper limit that you could stand oxygen loss
without brain cell death.
        "Hey, little fella," she said enthusiastically, "I think we'll go
for an unofficial record here."
        Through my dimming consciousness I found myself thinking, "We? 
You mean I actually have a vote?" as my innards were being squished like
a wet sponge.  And just when I was on the verge of believing that it
couldn't get any worse, she readjusted her hold and tightened her grip
until I was making an "uuusshhh" sound as the last reserve of air
squeezed from my limp body and saliva drooled from my mouth onto her
shoulder.  I was hanging in her arms pressed lethally against that rock
hard body, my arms dangling helplessly over her arms, my head draped
feebly over her shoulder, almost cheek to cheek, the sweet smell of her
sweat and cologne wafting up my nostrils, her copious hair tickling the
left side of my face, as I began to fade into what I was certain was
oblivion.
        She took no notice.  She was watching the clock.  "We're just
about there," she explained didactically.  "Just a few more seconds of
squeezing..."  I thought I felt my ribs, horribly compressed, pop and
separate from their anchors at my breastbone and spine. 
        "Just ten more seconds," she said, excitedly.  The ten seconds,
which might as well have been ten hours, or ten days, came and went, and
she was still constricting me terribly.  "Let's give it twenty more
seconds just to seal the record," she said, and at last I slipped
mercifully into unconsciousness just as she yelled, "We're going to make
it!"  My last clear thought was, "We?"
 
            When I regained consciousness twenty minutes later on the
floor mat, she was standing unconcernedly flexing and posing in front of
the mirror.  She saw my eyes flicker open and said, "Well, welcome back
to the world, Runner.  So how do I look in this pose?"  She was flexing
both biceps, standing with her weight distributed on one leg while the
other pointed out to the side--one mass of muscle cable tightly woven
into a superhuman woman.  "So, what do you think?"
           I tried to take a breath and when I did, instead of air, only
pain rushed in.
           "Do I look terrific or what?"
           I choked an answer that came out as, "Arguffisss hisss
ughhhhsss," and fell back onto the mat.
           "Well, I think I look terrific!" She looked down at me warmly.
"And I really like you, Runner.  Do you know that we unofficially broke
the record for a timed full-strength bear hug!" 
            There was the "we" again. 
           "Four minutes and twenty six seconds," she continued
gleefully.  "And guess what?  While you were napping, I called my agent
and we're gonna contact the Guiness Book of Records, and you and I are
going to go for an official record of five full minutes!  We're partners,
kid!"
            I started crawling toward the exit.  I'd break the lease on
my apartment, change my name, move out of town (possibly the country) and
enter the Witness Protection Program.
            She must have read my thoughts.  "Oh no you don't," she said,
amused by my feeble efforts to escape.  "I'm not gonna let you out of my
sight!  We're a team you and me.  We're going to be champs!"
And with that she picked me up over her shoulder (my body let out a
silent tormented scream of pain--my lungs and voice box too weak to do it
themselves), and carried me out into the main gym.
            She deposited me on my feet in front of all these cheering
women and cried, "Runner here is my best buddy, and we're going to set
some records!  Today the bear hug, tomorrow the double grapevine!"
            And with that, she grabbed me into a quick, sharp but full
embraced that turned my viscera into overcooked squash.  Then forty manic
women lifted my broken body into the air and marched me around the gym
singing, "For he's a jolly good fellow!"
 
            Tomorrow I'll contact the The Neptune Society.