DAY 29

DAY 29 - Monday; 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

On a Monday evening, at 6:00PM, on Valentine's Day no-less, you would think that tonight's Fitness Conditioning Class in the small and vibrant community of Evergreen, CO would be somewhat smaller than most other days!  It is a Holiday, afterall.  And a romantic one at that!  What is less romantic than an intensely grueling and exhausting workout in a hot gym?  Well, apparently in Evergreen, that is the PERFECT time for a workout.  There must have been close to 70 people in tonight's class at Nick's.  The most people I have ever seen in my 5 weeks of working out here.  Kids, adults, families, everyone!  It blew my mind.  But why not make Valentine's Day special by working out and getting in shape side-by-side with your sweetie, I guess!?

Whatever the case may be, Nick took this unusually large class as a challenge.  A challenge to make tonight's workout especially tough.  (well, ok - EVERY class has been ridiculously hard!)  And off we went in to an extensive leg and stomach workout that made everyone in the class grunt, and groan and try desperately to catch their breath during the 45 minutes of non-stop action!  Just the way Nick likes it.  No matter how large, or how small the group in his Conditioning Classes are, Nick makes sure that every class is challenging.  The only small benefit to a larger class, if you're still a Nick's "junior" like me, is that there is a wee bit more rest time in between each exercise as Nick walks around and gives pointers to some of the people on how to do the exercises right. 

Of course, at the complete opposite end of that rest is the fact that Nick can also get distracted and give pointers DURING our exercise and lose count!  Thus, instead of doing only 30 pushups, we end up doing more like 50.  Could it be that Nick is smarter than we give him credit for and knows EXACTLY what he's doing when he lets us linger longer during our rests, and push us harder during the exercise?  Perhaps.  But don't tell Nick I said so.  That will just egg him on to give me more mountain climbers for even doubting his method during class.  And I, for one, DO NOT like mountain climbers. They're annoying.  And Nick likes to dole out mountain climbers like a politician would handshakes at a political rally.  Nick assigns them by the hundreds to those who are not following his direction, or just push his buttons.  "600 Mountain Climbers to you for showing up 3 minutes late!"  "1,200 mountain climbers to you for gaining a pound!"  "1,000 mountain climbers to you for wearing a bright orange shirt to class that looks like it might glow-in-the-dark, and makes my eyes hurt!"

But I will tell you this!  After doing several hundred mountain climbers, one will never make that same mistake again if they can avoid it.  I don't think anyone likes doing mountain climbers.  They're just not fun!

Thank you for reading.
Jeffrey Bowers
Director of Sales
Denver Life Magazine