Sunday, March 12, 2006

Making My Gym Teacher Proud

When I was in high school gym class my freshman year, we had to run what the teacher called suicides. We had to run the length of the gym, bend over and touch a line on the floor, run back to the other end, touch a line, back and forth, back and forth, until we completed our sets or the teacher blew his whistle to stop. Then we had to go get in line for the "sweat test." We had to file past the teacher, and he would check to make sure we were sweating. If it wasn't obvious, he would run his hand across our forehead to check. I always thought the process was a little disgusting myself. I mean, who wants to go around touching sweaty teenager's foreheads all day? Gross! But he seemed to think it was a good way to make sure that we were participating enough. If he didn't think we were sweating enough, we didn't get our participation grade for the day. Well, try as I might, I never seemed to break a sweat during my suicides. I would run as fast as I could, but it still never seemed to do any good. The teacher usually gave me a frown when I filed passed him, but usually gave me credit anyway - probably because he was my neighbor and I babysat his kids. As an adult, I've made the comment several times that my body is confused. I never actually sweat while I am exercising. Instead, I just over heat, my face turns red, and everyone starts asking me if I am ok. Then 20 minutes after I'm done, I start sweating. Well, thanks to my training, my body has finally figured out what it is supposed to do, and now it is making up for all those lost years. I'm turning into one of those people with sweat soaked clothing by the time I'm done, and my hair is so sweat soaked it looks like I ran it under the faucet. It took me 18 years (my god, was it really that long ago?), but my old high school gym teacher would be proud!

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