Remember when exercise was fun? Just kidding. It was never fun. But it was better. In the good old days, I went to spin class, and there was nary a number in sight.
“Give me a turn!” the instructor would call out. There was so much room for interpretation. I’d eke out the world’s smallest turn, a millimeter to the right, and feel great about myself.
Now I get on my Peloton and am confronted with a veritable dashboard of my inadequacies: cadence (sluggish), resistance level (embarrassing), output (am I even alive?).
There is my prior, surely eternal, personal record, highlighted so that I never forget exactly how much better I was three years ago. Suddenly, I’m grappling with the passage of time, in my basement, as an Instagram influencer in a coordinating spandex set beseeches me to pedal faster.
On our screens and in real life, there’s so much pressure to improve one’s fitness. Buy one of those weighted vests, people say. Train for a marathon. I say: Maybe we should sit back down on the couch.
It’s not that I don’t believe what all those doctors and scientists claim about exercise being good for you. It’s just that I turned 40 this year, and everything’s breaking. Where I once ran, swam, and got out of chairs with abandon, I can now get injured doing basically anything.
A friend recently herniated a disc in his back … by bending down to tie his shoelace. My husband was in a wrist brace for two months, all because of a jar of salsa.
I don’t even know which of my knees is the bad one anymore. I always thought it was the right one, but the left was just cut open by my orthopedist, intentionally.
Getting old has surely always sucked, but it’s a bizarre time to be facing the indignities of aging. You can fret about your VO2 max or your fitness age, your protein intake, or your Oura sleep score.
Personally, I don’t need a $350 ring to know that I am drained and have been lifting the same weights (two pounds, the minimum) at my gym classes since I joined in February.
I did get a fitness watch, which I suspect might be gaslighting me. “Longest run,” it declares, after my shortest jog of the month. It flashes a gold trophy. I know it knows I did eight miles last Saturday. “We were both there!” I want to shout. I’m not sure if the trophy is a nice touch or incredibly condescending.
Other of the watch’s pronouncements are so passive-aggressive that my mother could be writing the copy. The watch’s analysis of my speed invariably boils down to “slower.”
That is the actual word it uses to describe my completed route, from start to finish. I peer at the dark blue squiggle winding through my neighbourhood and don’t understand. Slower than what? Usain Bolt? My mother?
I don’t expect my body to revert to what it was before enduring childbirth and/or the Trump presidencies, but I am susceptible to this idea of always getting better, of rejecting stagnation.
The Broadway star Jordan Litz, 37, just ran the New York City Marathon, then went on to perform in back-to-back “Wicked” shows. Harry Styles broke the three-hour mark in the Berlin Marathon. I wonder, could I run that fast?
I cannot, unequivocally.
I kicked off the year with plans to train for a half-marathon, fantasizing that maybe, on a perfectly flat course, with perfectly cool weather, I could break two hours. By October, I was on crutches.
It began with persistent popping in my left knee during the winter. I ignored it, opting instead to adopt a sort of galloping-limping manoeuvre to get up hills. It didn’t really hurt, I reasoned. And it was my good knee.
I went on like this for months, until the August day I went to grab my kids from the camp bus stop. My puppy was in the passenger seat. She suddenly started making that noise that puppies make when they’re about to puke.
I put the car in park, threw the top half of my body to the passenger’s side, and pushed open the door. I held her out to puke on the parking lot blacktop, feeling triumphant about my quick wits and dexterity.
Until I realized my feet were still in the driver’s seat, the puppy was dangling into the ether, and I had no exit plan. By the time I disembarked, out the puppy’s side, hands and puppy first, something really did not feel right about my knee.
My husband and I were set to attend a fun-sounding Indian Turkish wedding that weekend, so I knew what I had to do. I tried on a pair of Hokas with my gown, realized they looked unforgivable, and settled on some cushioned Ugg sandals.
I shifted all my weight to my right leg and treated my left as if it were immobile, which it essentially was. Then I accepted half a weed gummy from a friend and danced to early aughts rap bangers and bhangra music until midnight.
An M.R.I. next week revealed a “significant” tear in my meniscus.
So here I lie, on my couch, recovering from a meniscectomy. I now own a compression knee sleeve, available in three colours. I know the humility of not being able to perform even a child’s pose in Pilates class.
(That’s the one where you just kind of collapse on the floor.) Every time I glance at my watch, it reminds me I have run 0.0 miles this week.
I’m not saying this will happen to you. If you go slow and don’t make bad choices, you’ll probably be fine. You could try a 5K or join a gym.
Or, you could join me on the couch. I have to say, it’s pretty comfy over here.
