Early Days, Milkshakes, and Workouts

Thursday was an intense rowing practice. I was one “tore up boy” when I headed home from the river. Later on at the “Y” I did not kill myself on the Concept II rower like I usually do. I just did two sets of 3,000 meters at constant pressure and pace. I’ve been trying to eat more as my weight has been dropping since I seriously started training back in May. If I weigh myself at the Y without my shoes I’m down to 150.

Growing up I had such an inferiority complex. In High School for some reason I was constantly placed in gym classes with upperclassmen. Always being the smallest, scrawniest kid does not do much for your self esteem. I was getting established in my apartment and job at GM in 1976 when I read an article in the Buffalo Paper about a new fitness center that had just opened. It was not a sweaty gym, but a space with machines and even live plants! It was a Nautilus Fitness Center, which at the time was the cutting edge of work out machines.

I weighed out at the time at around 135 and was still self conscious. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I checked the place out and tried a three month membership. That turned into a year membership. As luck would have it, I hit a special where-by I was able to get into a program with a “lifetime” yearly renewal fee of $49.00.

In the late summer of 1984 the center began a program with personal trainers. The yearly fee was somewhere around $800.00 a year. I was pretty solvent and signed up. Three times a week I worked out with a trainer. The guys told me I was about the only one who signed up with the program to see it through. I would always get them laughing telling them I was so cheap, I was going to get my moneys worth if it killed me! They were good in that they pushed me to exhaustion doing “negative” repetitions. I know they got a sadistic pleasure seeing me suffer. I’ve felt that same rush myself coxing when pushing on my fellow rowers when they are beat! Working with those trainers back then instilled techniques I use to this day.

That fitness center closed in September 1985. Fortunately it happened just at the end of my contract so I was not out any real money.

After the move to Alabama my life was so hectic the last thing I had on my mind was working out. It was not till January 2006 I realized I had to do something. Gary had the gang out for one of his wonderful dinners. On the way home I stopped at the Winn Dixie for a few items. They have a huge scale at this store. I stepped on it and was horrified when the needle stopped at 173. I had never been that heavy. I witnessed too many of my contemporaries going to seed after they retired: that was not going to happen to me.

Not long after I got hooked up with the local Y and got my weight under control and a work-out routine became part of my life.

It took the Regatta last April we placed 2nd at to get me seriously working out again. That coupled with the fact the economy and my pension future is so uncertain. Being at the Y five days a week clears my mind. I’m not obsessing by worrying about things I have no control over.

This damn internet will never cease to amaze me! I just finished up this entry and got to thinking of the Oster blender my mother purchased in the early 1950’s so she could make milkshakes to fatten me up. There was never much discussed about my sickly start in this life. Looking back in hindsight, it could have been a really bad time in my parents lives they did not want to relive. I will never forget an old neighbor telling me at a funeral 20+ years ago how she could still hear my constant crying as mom would rock in the rocking chair trying to get me to eat and be quiet.

Convulsions caused me to be admitted to Children’s Hospital in Buffalo. I remember my Aunt Fran saying how her heart broke to see me hooked up to all kinds of wires and machines. The cause was vaguely referred to the baby formula I was fed which was deficient in vitamin b.

Using Google I tracked down the article “Association of vitamin B6 deficiency with convulsions in infants” published in 1954. Finally I can understand what happened to me in those early months of my life.

I still have that old blender. When I go shopping today I think I’ll stock up on some ice cream. It’s time to make milkshakes again!