Fat Woman and the disbelieving PT

Fat Woman was having a good week. On Monday during pad work Personal Trainer said: "That was quick!" Personal Trainer has never said anything like that to Fat Woman before. Fat Woman was extremely pleased, although she suspects that the only reason they got tangled up during the uppercuts was that Personal Trainer wasn't fully concentrating. Nevertheless, Fat Woman is inspired to try harder and be surprisingly quick again.

Today Fat Woman went to her gym. Fat Woman has netball practice on Tuesday evenings so limits her cardio to a bit of a warm up and hitting the heavy bag 500 times, as mandated by Personal Trainer. The rest of the time Fat Woman does some mat work in order to keep up with the fitness part of BoxFit class.

There is a new female personal trainer at Fat Woman's gym. This one is young and sweet and seems to like talking to Fat Woman. Fat Woman is always friendly to the occasional new personal trainer because it must be hard being new in a competitive workplace. Fat Woman thinks it must be particularly hard coming in as a young woman amongst mostly male colleagues. Fat Personal Trainer wasn't at all into working out but Sweet PT seems to like exercise and joined Fat Woman for her rowing warm up.

Fat Woman suggested they race for a kilometre. Fat Woman isn't entirely sure what her motives were, and has to admit that she might well have been expecting to surprise Sweet PT with just how fit she is.

Fat Woman rowed as Personal Trainer taught her, with strong, long pulls. What Fat Woman didn't expect was that Sweet PT would be heaving away on the rowing machine, giving it everything. Fat Woman was barely making an effort but when she glanced at Sweet PT's display Fat Woman could see that she was quite a way ahead of Sweet PT.

Fat Woman had a dilema. Sweet PT is a -well, a sweet girl, and whilst Fat Woman is keen to teach the lesson that fat ladies can also be fit ladies, she didn't want to crush the girl's confidence entirely. Fat Woman wondered how she would feel in Sweet PT's position, as a newly qualified PT being shown that she wasn't quite good enough.

Fat Woman pulled less hard.

Sweet PT finished at 1017m when Fat Woman was at 1010m. Fat Woman congratulated Sweet PT and saw her off to train with Sergeant PT who had just arrived. Sergeant PT was going to show Sweet PT some CrossFit moves. Fat Woman is not yet interested in being CrossFit and is still working on being Fit, albeit whilst being a little tetchy sometimes.

After workout and a shower Fat Woman had just left when she stopped to catch up with a friend who works at the gym. Fat Woman was sharing her joy at her recent triumphs and her friend was being suitably supportive.

Sergeant PT arrived just as Fat Woman was doing her happy dance and wanted to know what the hallelujah was going on.

Fat Woman hasn't had much of a chance to get to know Sergeant PT, although being caught doing the happy dance is a good moment to extend the intimacy. Sergeant PT appreciates her lemon drizzle cakes and that is all Fat Woman requires to view somebody kindly, but Fat Woman has heard Sergeant PT being blunt with clients, usually prefaced with him saying "I don't mean to be rude, but..." When discussing possible holiday cover with Personal Trainer Fat Woman said she could envision Sergeant PT saying: "I don't mean to be rude, but is this number on the form wrong or are you really that fat?"

Fat Woman explained first about the pad work compliment, and then explained how she had slowed down her rowing in order not to beat Sweet PT.

Sergeant PT declared that wasn't possible.

Fat Woman raised both her eyebrows and stood back to watch Sergeant PT mentally spin for a bit.

Sergeant PT said that Sweet PT wasn't trying.

Fat Woman said that Sweet PT was breathing hard at the end and it certainly looked like she was trying during the row.

Sergeant PT said that Sweet PT had trained legs yesterday.

Fat Woman said we all trained yesterday and that was no excuse.

Sergeant PT said that Sweet PT used to row for sport.

Fat Woman said that rowing machines are completely different.

Sergeant PT agreed that point, but then said that the rowing machines in the gym aren't calibrated properly.

At this point, Fat Woman stopped to listen. Fat Woman has always said she doesn't mind being patronised by people who know more than she does, and Sergeant PT turned out to be very knowledgable about rowing machines and how to calibrate them, and how you should go by drag not numbers on the dial. Fat Woman reached for her notebook but Sergeant PT she didn't need to write anything down, he would show her with pleasure. Fat Woman offered to pay for half an hour of tuition but Sergeant PT said he would do he as a mate, just for the pleasure of helping someone improve. Not would Sergeant PT accept the offer of lemon drizzle cake or even zero-carb bread.

Fat Woman was touched by the kindness, and got Sergeant PT to give her a day and a time to do this.

When Sergeant PT had his diary out that he said: "When did you last do pads with Personal Trainer?" Fat Woman was puzzled by this enquiry but said: "Yesterday." Sergeant PT hadn't known that Fat Woman was still training with Personal Trainer. Fat Woman suspects that he was going to offer her the usual free introductory training session.

Fat Woman had to let Personal Trainer know that she was intending to get training from someone else. Sergeant PT said he would speak to Personal Trainer if he saw him that night, but Fat Woman emailed him just to make sure.

Fat Woman is going to enjoy working with her fourth personal trainer, especially if he helps her master the rowing machine computer. Fat Woman has never let a computer beat her yet and is dying to know all the capabilities of this one.

Fat Woman still isn't sure that Sergeant PT is fully aware of how fit she is, but she is sure he will understand by the end of tomorrow.

Fat Woman wonders what the other PTs think that she has been doing with Personal Trainer for the last nine months. It isn't as though they have never seen Fat Woman and Personal Trainer work together.