I’ve realized that hours and hours of cardio a week in the gym isn’t really doing much for me in terms of changing my body.  It took me a full decade to come to this conclusion.  Give me another ten years and I’ll finally realize that eating dessert after lunch and dinner probably isn’t helping my thighs.

Anyway, so I’ve started ditching my Tuesday morning spinning classes and instead taking strength training.  As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I work out in the morning with mostly mothers of three who have bodies so amazing I couldn’t have even dreamed of having their abs when I was in high school.  Seriously, they all have the muscle definition of starved racing dogs.

With this gaggle of greyhounds in Lulu Lemon and full make up, there’s a lot of politics involved in the classes.  Groups of friends save places for each other, the better people get to be in the front, and only a few select people are allowed to talk to the teacher.  It’s like a fitness fiefdom with very rigid roles and rules.

Being new in a class, you have to stand in the back and avoid eye contact with the alpha females in the front.  I did that for the first few weeks, but then this morning, I was running a bit late and the only spot available for me to set up my weights was in the second row.  I was legitamately nervous about overstepping my bounds as I pieced together my step bench and placed my bar, handweights, and mat in position.

The woman directly in front of me, a front rower, turned around and said, “You don’t look like you belong here.”

I felt like I’d just walked into a biker bar wearing a pink tutu and ordered a chocolate milk.  Yeah, I probably didn’t fit in, but they still had to serve me, right?  I was debating if I should stand up for myself or force my fellow back rowers to smoosh to one side so I could fit in.

“Umm, well, I’ve already set my stuff…” I started.

“You’re so much younger than the rest of us old ladies!” she said, unaware that I was having a dork at the popular lunch table moment.

I was so focused on my relief at not being mocked for row jumping that I couldn’t even muster up the social grace to come up with some sort of appropriate self-depricating reply.  Instead I said, “Yeah, I guess you guys are a lot older.”

The front rower’s eyes went a little wide at my response and she turned away.

I offended the queen bee and I’m sure there are going to be some sort of consequences.

I’m kind of scared to go next week.