10 Reasons I Love and Admire My Fit Friends

This past weekend was the first time ever I traveled with only friends from the gym and it was awesome! I didn’t feel guilty not drinking, or feel the need to sneak away to go for a run or lift barbells in the hotel gym. We spend 2-4 hours together lifting and doing CrossFit workouts at least 5 days per week. We know each other’s’ diets, what volume and levels of activity we require, and what each other’s personal fitness goals are.

There are so many qualities I admire about my fit friends but here are the top ten:

1. They are so freaking funny! Seriously though, everyone can laugh and be laughed at. There are no hard feelings and we laugh so hard we cry.

2. They are planners. Knowing they would be gone two days and return to a heavy lifting cycle starting Monday, they hit it hard Friday working out, did active recovery on Saturday and rested on Sunday. On a group trip I don’t have to feel like a freak for planning for my goals.

3. They are determined. No matter what the goal, or the defeat, they get right back up and keep going.

4. They’re not whiny. No one laments about a goal they didn’t hit or a good night’s sleep they didn’t get.

If life’s emotions are too rough, they take a time out, a day off from the gym and replenish themselves.

5. They offer perspective. Is getting a 1 rep max on a lift the end all be all? No. Is it an important goal within our competitive world? Yes. However, I know I can always rely on them to put into perspective that fitness increases our quality of life and it should be a life that is lived in balance.

6. They are sympathetic. They offer support and understanding in the waves of stressors that life brings. They also sniff it out based on a less than stellar performance working out with them.

7. They share their struggles. They want the best for their friends and will always share their struggles if it will help their friends succeed. In this way they are incredible selfless and I learn a lot from them.

8. They are classy competitive. They are competitive with themselves and while working out together. However, a win is a win and the losers are never sore.

9. They celebrate each other’s differences and play to each other’s strengths. If one person knows more about hiking or event planning the others are happy to let her take the lead. Similarly, in the gym we all have strengths and weaknesses. When working out together we never can agree on one WOD we will all do so “lifters choice” was created to sub in movements the individual wants to improve upon.

10. They are doers. As soon as they put their mind to something, watch out because they will achieve and then some. They don’t make excuses and they definitely don’t sit on the sidelines of life. They tackle life in the same way they do their fitness. They are career driven, family oriented, and work hard to balance work & play, love & friendships while making to time for our common love of fitness.

In case you missed my last post, I figured out a way to leave shredding papers in the basement of my dad’s office and set my sights on a far sexier occupation: Iowa pool lifeguard.
Reasons why I wanted to lifeguard at Splash Landing:
• The pool manager was in his twenties, could grow a beard, and was the sexiest Ben Affleck look alike I had ever seen.
• Boys took their shirts off at the pool
• Everyone gets tan at the pool in the summer
Reasons why I was terrified to try out to be a lifeguard:
• I had to pass a swim test for Ben Affleck and while in my mind I was a sassy flirtatious queen, in practice I wouldn’t utter two words to Ben.
• I HAD TO PASS A SWIM TEST FOR BEN AFFLECK and I’m 15!
Trying out to be a lifeguard was the first time I cared about anything in a fewyears. Other than fighting a lot with my dad, writing sad mopey journal entries and wishing I was in my twenties so I could move to California, I now had a goal I cared about and set my plans in motion. First, I went down to the office across the street from the pool and got an application. I filled it out at the kitchen table, asking my mom for my social security number not even knowing what one was at the time. I had my driver’s permit so that upped my cool factor. I wouldn’t have to ask my mom to drop me off a block away in her embarrassing bright yellow car waving out the window, “Have a nice day, Han!” No, I could drive myself to the pool in my bad ass black Oldsmobile Cutlass pimped out with dice in the mirror.
When I turned in my application, I expected to go home and wait and be nervous like I’d just auditioned for American Idol. Instead, I handed the my application to a very practical thirty something, butch-looking, general manager who looked it over and without looking up said, “Be back here Saturday morning, 8 am for a swim test.” As an aside, I’m sure I still use too many words when I’m gaining understanding of something but her answer did nothing but elicit more questions: So, am I hired? How many laps is the swim test? Can you do it, instead of Ben Affleck? How many hours will this last? Should I be nervous? My list of internal questions went on and yet I answered, “Okay.”
Friday night before the big swim test, I laid out my speedo, goggles and cap in my lucky Jansport burnt orange backpack and anticipated the morning to come. I then studied an article in Seventeen Magazine on shading your chest with bronzer powder to somehow enhance your cleavage because procrastination helps calm me down. I painted my top boobs brown and didn’t see a bit difference in the bathroom and then wrote this in my mopey journal:

Dear Journal,
I don’t even know why I’m doing this stupid swim test. It’s not like any of the guys I love from Assumption are going to be there. Maybe this is just my way of branching out to new Bettendorf guys? I can’t wait to have a boyfriend. I doubt Midwestern boys even know how to swim. We used to swim all the time in Cali. I can’t wait to be twenty and move back there. Well, I’m thankful that even though I was fat, my mom encouraged me to swim for the Rockville Rays as a kid in Maryland. I may not be good at other sports but I can swim for a long time without feeling tired. Too bad this doesn’t count for being sexier in high school. Nighty, night journal!
The next morning, there was dew on the grass and the concrete of the pool deck was cold beneath my feet. I walked into the locker room, stripped off my sweats, sucked in my gut, grabbed my cap and goggles and tried to make sure no one could actually hear my heart beating like a drum up into the back of my throat. Out walked Ben Affleck looking all fine with his morning scruff and slouchy athletic sweats and a clipboard. He said something about how the butch lady manager was supposed to do this swim test but she called in so he now HAD to do it. Ouch, Ben, I thought to myself. I seriously thought you’d be happier to see me at 8 am in a Speedo.
I don’t remember how long the tests were, but I do remember we had to tread water, show proficiency in all the strokes and then do a timed race. Suddenly, I was trying out for Navy Seals. I wish I had known then I had a competitive streak because I could’ve been much more accomplished in high school had I channeled it. The game was on and I was ready to cut a bitch who drifted over in to my lane. I’d mow down this competition then throw it in reverse and back right back over you to be sure you understood the meaning of a dominant bitch. Well not really, but I was invested! The prize was an imaginary rose from Ben and I wasn’t about to go down without giving it my all. Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m pretty sure Ben was hungover behind his sunglasses. He was probably burping up last night’s Jägermeister wishing he were dead. Hell, he probably passed all of us so long as we could doggie paddle! This swim test was my only time to shine and I knew it. I have a nice buffer of mid-section fat (always have) that creates an incredible amount of buoyancy in the water. So long as I pull the sponge bob square pants that is my torso swimming has never been too hard.

As soon as I got done, I pulled my swim cap off and checked to see if I remembered to take off the boob bronzer from practicing in the mirror last night. Ben then came up to each of us and asked us our availability for the summer. Again, I knew I had to put a filter on things for coolness sake because answering the question truthfully would sound like, “Well aside from fighting with my dad, writing mopey journal entries and practicing make-up and hair in the mirror I’m pretty much wide open.” My imagination often gets the best of me and I had a solid daydream moment where I wondered if this was code for Ben asking me out on date. “Hey, Hottie are you like, available?” Once I came to, I realized this was NOT what he meant. My real answer, “Um, yea. I can work like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday…”
I drove myself home berating myself for that overly available answer and my earlier excitement turned into this rotten attitude of dread and embarrassment for putting myself out there like THAT. Please, God, my family better not ask me how it went because I want to die right now.
I came home and mom asked, “So, how do you think you did?”
“I think I swim well I just wish I wasn’t such a dork.”
“Han, you’re not a dork.”
“Mom, this means nothing because you’re my M-O-M. You’re forced to show love whether you got dealt a dorky daughter hand or not.”
A few days after, I got a call from Butch saying I got the job! I was excited for the prospect of having more chances to impress Ben and that I had earned a job on my own merit. It felt really damn good and was the proudest moment of my teenage life thus far.
Once I started, I realized life guarding was about as boring as watching paint dry. I looked forward most to rotating chairs, at which time I could stand at the base of the next chair and talk to whatever lifeguard was switching out with me. And while it didn’t earn me points with Ben or any of the other boys I tried impressing, I always volunteered to fish the kid poo out of the pool after it had been cleared of swimmers.
The poo alarm went something like this, a loud obnoxious child would scream up at a lifeguard, “There’s poo floating in the pool! Ew!!” From there the head lifeguard got on the mic and said, “It is mandatory all swimmers please clear the pool!” Cue me with a long pole with a net on the end. I truly enjoyed fishing kid poo from the pool because it was an activity where I could actually get wet and stretch my legs from that boring chair. Hannah, poo fisher woman to the rescue! Negative points earned on the sexy scale but I was too damn sweaty to care at that point.

Towards the end of the summer, Ben came up to me and I almost fainted from either heat stroke from 88 degree humid summer or because I thought Ben was finally coming to his senses and asking me out. He said, “Hey Hannah, I think you’re really hot and I want to take you out sometime.” False. He never said that. Instead he said, “Hey Hannah, technically you’re supposed to be 16 to teach swim lessons but one of our instructors has to go back to college early. Do you want to teach the tots class?” Ben could’ve asked me if I wouldn’t mind doing a back flip off the lifeguard stand and I would’ve done it. So without thinking about the fact that I hated babies and most children at this period I said, “Yea. I think I can do  that.”

Teaching babies really means putting up with moms. Moms treat their babies like they’re made of porcelain. With a ton of enthusiasm I sat in the tot pool and said things like, “Alright everyone, show me your bubbles! Blow bubbles!! That’s great! Now kick, kick, kick, kick.” It was very obvious to me that the babies didn’t care what I said to them, just touch their feet in water and it was like they knew they were coming home. They appeared to be tactile only, and loved the feel of recreating the free float they had in utero. It was the moms who cared if I liked their pooping, squealing, piglet babies. As the old saying goes, “Fake it till you make it,” and so I did. At the end of the 3 week class the moms filled out very nice evaluation forms on me and Ben and Butch pretty much let me do my thing.

When the summer wrapped, I was sad to say goodbye to the pool. While I came in thinking I was going to get a boyfriend. I left thinking I’m a pretty darn good swim teacher and I had grown in confidence and gotten outside of my own insecurities.
That fall I got a call from Butch saying they had a request for a private swim instructor for a “sensitive situation” and would I be interested? Well, I thought. What is the situation? There was a 26 year old local grocery store manager who was brutally embarrassed that he never learned how to swim. He had just become a father and wanted to learn so he could swim with his kid. Did I want the weekend job at the indoor pool? Without thinking about how awkward it would be to try and float a 6 ft white male I said an enthusiastic, “Yes!” I left thinking I was about to get Brad Pitt for private swim lessons. SCORE!

Currently, I advise college students on their academics and discuss their potential job prospects in the fashion, retail and marketing industries. I look over their resumes and aim to guide them to gain “relevant” experience towards their ultimate goal. I am a liar. I also realize I was lied to. I had no ultimate goal and my career journey has been working jobs I don’t like, working jobs with some things I like, then trying to find a job that has more of what I liked and less of what I didn’t like at the last job. I always have the hardest time telling them they need to deal with the parts of their job they don’t want to deal with if they ever want to get somewhere in life. A student asked me, “What did you learn from your first job?” I laughed and replied, “My first job taught me I hated my first job.” Okay, so this was true but I couldn’t even access the WHY.

 
My first job ever was working at my dad’s office. His office staff was all female and it appeared that a prerequisite for getting hired was hair cut above your chin, a sweatshirt or sweater with iron on appliques, a love of baked goods and a general fake pleasantness. One that could fool your male boss into thinking you loved your job but not your fellow female co-workers or the newest hire (fifteen year old me). When you’re at your first job and your brain isn’t fully formed, you don’t know it’s hard to get a job and you don’t know why your dad’s staff would be put off at the idea of having the boss’s daughter there to do bitch work they don’t want to do. The second part, I’m still unsure of. I’d like to think they probably didn’t like my dad very much because when he walked me in the ladies were all smiles. But the moment my dad headed out the smiles stopped and the head office lady made a point to give me the un-sexiest tasks imaginable. I was hoping I would sit up front and file. I wouldn’t have to talk to scary strangers but I could still see patient interaction. I had seen Romy fake how she was business woman in Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion. I had practiced saying my best Romy voice, “I invented Post Its” before my first day. It was a learning curve to even understand what business casual dress meant.

 

It was here that I first learned middle aged, church going women are not to be trusted. The office manager smiled and never wavered from her sweet as pie tone as she led me to the unfinished office basement with an electric paper shredder on its way out of this world. The cement floor was cold and there were cardboard boxes of old medical files piled to the ceiling. She told me to start in the corner and work my way across the room with shredding the oldest files first.

“The shredder is delicate. It can only handle up to 4 pages at a time or it jams. We have had this shredder for a long time and kept it in good condition. Don’t jam it.”

 

So here’s what my first job taught me:
It is necessary to test out rules under the radar. Immediately after she walked up the stairs and shut the basement door I stuck 5 sheets of paper into the shredder and what do you know the thing jammed! I spent the next ten minutes wrestling paper shreds from its locked jaws.
You shouldn’t let any boss treat you poorly. Even if you’re fifteen and you probably didn’t deserve the job in the first place. I was aware my boss didn’t like me solely because she didn’t like her boss. Thanks, Dad. I was also aware that this was not my fight to pick but that I wouldn’t take my dislike for one person out on another when I became a boss. I also would always be nice to the new hire.
If you are so low on the totem you are viewed as an afterthought by your boss, figure out how to continue to teach yourself. I love other people’s stories. I learned a lot about these patients who had passed away. I shredded enough paper in the morning to pass a mid-morning check. Did I have a pile of hamster litter shreds in a wire garbage can? Check. She’s doing her job. After lunch, there were no checks on me. I dug into the medical files and tried to read EKGs. Thumbing through Ethel’s old medical charts, I remember wishing there was a required diary entry patients filled out while they stayed in the hospital. I became obsessed with wanting to know what these people died of and who they were when they were still alive. Did they want to die? Were they ready? Had they lived lives they were proud of? You know, the normal things a 15 year old ponders. I created entire back stories for these characters who were actually real people who were dead. I imagined knocking on the doors of their loved ones conducting interviews on how they were remembered. I knew what ailed them and the rest I made up.
If you don’t like your job, you’ve got to make moves.
And make moves I did. I was just starting to get attention from boys and really that was the only thing that motivated me in life at age 15. Everything in my life was divided into two buckets at this time: Sexy and Not Sexy (just ask my journal during these years). In the Sexy bucket was being tan, J.Lo, flirting with boys, blond hair, being at the right locations where flirting with boys was even a possibility. Not Sexy included working in my dad’s office in the basement shredding paper, my mom dropping me off anywhere, being seen with my entire family anywhere ever. As soon as I focused in on my priorities, I set my sights on finding the sexiest work environment I could. I wanted to be a lifeguard at the local pool.

Reasons why I wanted to lifeguard at Splash Landing in Bettendorf IA:
• The pool manager was in his twenties, could grow a beard, and was the sexiest Ben Affleck look alike I had ever seen.
• Boys took their shirts off at the pool
• Everyone gets tan at the pool in the summer

Reasons why I was terrified to try out to be a lifeguard:
• I had to pass a swim test for Ben Affleck and while in my mind I was a sassy flirtatious queen, in practice I wouldn’t utter two words to Ben.
• I HAD TO PASS A SWIM TEST FOR BEN AFFLECK and I’m 15!