Training with Olympians

or Exercise à la Française et à la Sénégalaise

This is a blog post I first had the idea for while in my early 1990s era step aerobic class in Semur (and started the post in January...) and is now super long and perhaps not as comical as it would have been were I still in France, but alas.  Another long-awaited blog post finally finished up!

Zumba!



So anyone who knows anything about what I did during the Summer of 2010 knows that it basically revolved around 4 things: attending weddings (and wedding events), working at a coffeeshop, going to the gym, and wishing I was still in Senegal.  The daydreaming about Senegal was constant, but the wedding things were mostly confined to the weekends, leaving 5+ days a week to do nothing except sling lattes and go to the gym.  I became rather obsessed (with both things), doing what I could to work my café hours around my favorite classes at the gym and working my gym schedule around my café hours.  My days off from the coffee shop were somewhat confused and many times found myself going to the gym morning AND evening.  [Not to mention that days off were also kind of frustrating because I needed to earn money for all of the wedding events, but my gym pass was already paid off, so il faut profiter quoi!]

My favorite activities at the gym quickly became the various group fitness classes Healthbridge offers, especially Zumba, Body Flow, Body Jam, yoga, and Sh'Bam!  On the unfortunate days when my gym and work schedules did not match up, I would do cardio on machines and some lifting/toning.  I really wanted to try Body Pump but was always too intimidated by the sign-up list and intense middle aged women who would rush into the studio at the end of a Body Jam dance class to get an ideal spot before everyone else flooded in (20min before the class would start).  Granted, I also had my own routine and "preferred spot" for Zumba and the other dance classes (in front of the mirror, slightly to the left of the instructor, but with plenty of space to move).  I guess we all have our routines...

Suffice to say, I got my money out of my 4 month gym membership.  And then I went to France, to a teeny tiny little town without a modern athletic facility or regular aerobic dance classes, not to mention a very modest and fixed budget and no car.  What to do?

The answer came in the form of a brochure for the Maison Pour Tous (a quasi-rec center) and my new  expensive running shoes (bought for walking and rando exercise in the hopes there would be a gym in my town in France).  The MPT offered a weekly step aerobics course (as well as a "musculation" course I couldn't afford), and since they gave me the student rate, it was 65€ for the entire year, I signed up for step.  The last time I had taken a step course was in Total Body Fitness (yea TBF!) as a gym course in high school, and wasn't in love with the idea, but I knew that I would need something to get me out of the apartment to exercise, esp in the winter.  Step was every Thursday, 6:30-7:30pm, and insured that I would at least do something cardio once a week, even if the weather was bad or things fell through.

Before I paid my precious 65€, Monika and I went to a trial class to see what it was like.  Basically, it was a basement room with a small mirrored section, a class of 40 or so 30-40-somethings, myself, and a few teenage girls, small black steps circa 1991, and a tiny French step instructor armed with 1970's-90s American classic pop music she couldn't actually hear the beat of the music to choreograph to.  Well, maybe she just didn't know how to choreograph, but the dancer in me left the first trial class, and every class after, laughing with horror at her inability to follow the beat, tempo, and flow of the music with the steps.  She would change pace every few minutes and we would do the same choreography over a 2+ month period.  And then there were the other participants...those ladies!  They were funny and French and for the most part, super out of shape, and so would need a water/chat break after absolutely every song.  Really!  I guess it just wasn't my Zumba class, where Stephanie the instructor would keep us energized, heart rates up, the entire hour+ and only minimal water breaks (3?).  In other words, the class was NOT very intense at all and I hated feeling like a step robot and would sometimes find myself dancing along to the music instead of the choreography (like Footloose!).  My dancing tendencies were increased in part due to the fact that Wednesday nights I would watch Glee and thus be in a dancing/singing mood all day Thursday.  I did LOVE the way the instructor would bounce around (she was only like 5' tall), calling out franglais "Faites un kick, kick!" and attempting but failing to go along with the music.

Since step was not as intense as I needed and I lived at my school and thus wasn't moving around much, I realized that I had to do something else.  I went on long walks but since my town was so small, there were very few different routes to take and things got old fast.  I decided to start run-walking (ok mostly walking) around when it wasn't too cold or snowy, but the size of my town also meant I would run across it and feel like I had done a lot, but was only out for 12 minutes!  Despite the frigid temperatures and snow, I went out a few times a week in November and December, but had trouble getting into the running mood after Christmas break and thus found myself instead going on 5km round trip walks to the next to next village a few times a week.  Through my step class, I learned that a lot of French women (or at least women in Burgundy) don't really enjoy sweating, so there were never many runners in my town.  Perhaps a handful on the walking/running path, but rarely enough to intimidate me.  When it was really cold, I would work out in our hallway/stairwell (in the abandoned school building we lived in), running up and down stairs, taking out the trash, doing jumping jacks on each landing, and then lifting my like 2kg handweights.  It wasn't much but it helped me feel better about things (like bread, cheese, salad, and wine as regular dinner staples).  Also, while on two different day trips to Paris, I found discounted/free Zumba France classes to try, which were super fun though also of varying intensities.

When I returned to Senegal, I was excited about the idea of once again being able to walk everywhere, especially the 20min walk from my home (at the Training Center) to my office, not to mention the market and everywhere else in town, as a way to get back in shape.  I quickly realized though that I wanted, er needed, to do something else.  Thies has a few "gyms", ie rooms with old weight machines and hundreds of body building Senegalese dudes, ie not for me.  Young Senegalese men love running in Thies, any time of the day, and it's somewhat very intimidating.  They run for hours, never stopping, in flip-flops, jelly sandles, and occassionally tennis shoes.  The days here are hot and it doesn' cool off until night, which means that evening is full of even more male runners and not a good time for a single white chick to go out running.  This left the mornings...ah the mornings!  I did a few short AM neighborhood runs but never really felt comfortable until another PCV said that he was going to try out the nearby track.

The track?  Eh, I don't know...that sounds kind of boring and reminds me of high school gym class--plus it's not just a track, it's part of a national sports training center.  I'm talking about the place where the US NBA/WNBA comes to do yearly basketball training camps, where male and female athletes from across West Africa train to become the Champion of Africa in whatever their event may be (track and field, wrestling, etc), where Lisa met and started working with what may be the national gymnastics team, and where Olympic hopefullys from across Africa come to train for summer Olympic trials.  No, seriously, it's an intense place and I don't classify myself as a runner or even much of an athlete, just someone who wants to be healthy and in shape.  And the track, like everything else in Senegal, is sand rekk, just sand.  Do you know how difficult it is to run on sand?

Well, whatever, fine, I'll try it.  Having another PCV there (though we didn't run together, I'm far too self-conscious about my running to do that) gave me the courage to try it out, then I discovered that another female Thies PCV also goes there almost every morning.  She told me if you go between 7 and 8:30, there's no one using the track and usually very few creepers.  Sweet!  I've been running there since April, about 4-5 times a week depending on my work schedule.  While I don't run incredible distances, I do well for myself and that's what matters, and I've beaten my personal bests.  I still walk, but only very short distances and try to push myself further and further.  Sometimes I just do a handful of laps, sometimes I go much farther, depending on the already intense morning heat and how tired I am.  I still won't call myself a "runner" but the PC staff have started calling me la grande sportive (basically the great/big/intense athlete) because they see me going out almost everyday to run and I am always finishing up my post-run stretches/arms/ab work when they arrive in the morning.  It feels great and has been an invaluable addition to my morning routine, even if it means I rarely get to my office before 9:30, whatever.

Will I keep running when I return to America?  Perhaps.  I would absolutely love to run a 5km someday soon (I would LOVE to do a full or half marathon but don't actually have the desire to be that serious about running).  The house I am moving into in Baltimore is near the JHU Homewood campus which has a track that's open to the public, but I also will probably join the student gym either on the Med Campus (where Bloomberg classes are in East Baltimore) or pay a little more for the Homewood campus gym closer to home.  Or maybe I will just look for a local dance studio offering African dance and Zumba, or somewhere else.  However, I will def be borrowing my parents' Healthbridge guest passes during the 5 days or so I am back in CL so I can once again take one of Stephanie's Zumba sessions and do some BodyFlow!

Well, that's an update on some of my out-of-work activities.  If you made it this far, FELICITATIONS!!!  Sorry it was so long and not nearly as humorous or insightful as the entry I had originally planned in my head in January in France.  Had a great run today which has put me in an awesome mood even if I have a long day in the office ahead of me!