If you haven't seen the inside of a gym for a whole year

And then suddenly goes again

May is a sporty woman, but I think you already knew that. Now I, the biggest non-sporty person on earth, watch May all day long. She suddenly jumps up at twelve or half past five to go boxing or bootcamping with the guys from The Gym Republic. And I can tell you: it made me a little restless. It was so bad that during my little walk I peeked through the window to see where she was hanging out. They are just around the corner and I thought I should stay informed. It all looked remarkably sporty there. With boxing balls and space to move and more of that.

At the beginning of December, my daily menu was revamped (read: everything was just a bit too much and a bit too often and maybe a bit too creamy) to make it all a bit slimmer and leaner. I will never be thin, my build is the perfect excuse for that, but it doesn't hurt to try something. I did lose a few pounds, but that didn't make my head any calmer. I wanted to be fitter, fresher, more energetic (I don't even know where that came from). Suddenly I remembered that long, long ago I used to hang out at the gym three times a week. And that I became a particularly well-rested person from that. Even tidy.

That's why I told May last week that I had secretly looked at her gym's website. She almost did a little hop of joy because she knew what I didn't know at the time: if you look at sites related to sports, you eventually go. And on Sunday afternoon I texted her to ask if she was going boxing this week. ‘Yessss, are you coming?’ I got back. And then she booked her class within a second, for the next day at a quarter past twelve and mine before I even realized it.

I felt twelve again when I stood there in my sports outfit. I didn't remember the moves for kickboxing bag training (and of course I didn't know them at all). I would have preferred to hide an oxygen tank under my shirt because I was already a bit out of breath during the warm-up. I told everyone that I really hadn't exercised for a year and in the year before that I did Pilates, which gives you a flexible body but does little for your endurance or to prevent a red face.  Three-quarters of the way through the lesson, when May was boxing against the bag like a professional, I almost passed out and that ended with a tea from the instructor. Meanwhile, May was happily boxing away. I was a happy, dizzy woman because boxing suits me better than swirling around at Zumba. Graceful sports just aren't really one of my options.

Long story short: in two days I'm going for an evening walk to recover quietly (that I would ever say this) and on Friday afternoon I'm going again. They said something about a drink afterwards, something like that gives the citizen courage, and that means I'll probably last five minutes longer than today before I need oxygen and the instructor's tea. With a view of wine.