Fat Woman had developed the idea that she could enjoy going for a run. This was a major shift in perception because everything Fat Woman knows about running is that she is much slower than everyone else, that she doesn't enjoy being left behind, and if she tries to keep up with everyone else it physically hurts. Fat Woman has a particularly lovely memory of when it was the 1500m at school. Fat Girl tried extremely hard and spent her energy before getting to the end of the course. The gym teacher was trying to get Fat Girl to run the last twenty metres, which Fat Girl wasn't going to do because her lungs already hurt unbearably. Fat Girl heard the teacher say in disgust "She won't even try." Fat Girl thought that was particularly unfair because she had tried so hard for the whole thing and was still trying hard, both to get to the finish line and not to cry at the humiliation of being so far behind everyone else.
Fat Woman had asked Personal Trainer to teach her natural running. Fat Woman wasn't entirely sure that Personal Trainer was on board with natural running, but certainly they started with running. Personal Trainer taught Fat Woman a very useful technique for sprinting from a standing start. Fat Woman will apply this to netball.
Fat Woman found it all very overwhelming, especially coming on top of the most stressful week she could remember for years. To top it all off, it was what Fat Woman considered the first day of the rest of her life. Fat Woman had done the course she had been waiting for, thus ending the year of time-off fitness. Fat Woman wasn't going to melt down in session, but skipped a shower and promised herself a few self indulgent moments when she got to the car.
On her way out of the gym Fat Woman was waylaid by Personal Trainer. Personal Trainer wanted to introduce Fat Woman to Mrs Personal Trainer. Mrs Personal Trainer is not actually married to Personal Trainer but might as well be according to all accounts. Fat Woman was utterly brain frozen, only just stopped herself from saying: "Aha! The future Mrs Personal Trainer" and was in addition concious of her unwashed hair and red face. Fat Woman's only comfort was that Mrs Personal Trainer didn't seem too chuffed to be introduced to a new person whilst she was in the middle of her own workout. Certainly Mrs Personal Trainer wasn't stopping her progress on the elliptical machine to make conversation, so Fat Woman made a quick escape, concious that she had not covered herself with conversational glory.
Personal Trainer later wanted to know if Fat Woman had been "in a mood". Fat Woman made a mental note to recommend alternative phrases such as "Are you all right?" and "Is anything wrong?" but was fairly impressed that he had both noticed and asked.
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