It's like a New Year's resolution with much, much more at stake. It's called Lent, and while I don't totally understand it, I'm sure I'm not the only person struggling with it.
Here's how it works, at least to me, a person who picked up most of his religious knowledge from the movie "Dogma": When Ash Tuesday rolls around, you give something up until Easter. I don't know why exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's because God gave something up, too. But I don't think it was something as minuscule as Taco Bell. Once Easter comes around, you can use profanity again, or watch "Temptation Island" again, or whatever other evil habit it was you may have given up.
Liz Taylor, Kansas University sophomore, sweats it out on the treadmills at Lawrence Athletic Club North, 3201 Mesa Lane.
I always struggle trying to decide on what I should give up, or more specifically, what God would want me to give up. For some reason, I don't think he/she/it really cares if I quit drinking soda pop. And besides, I've witnessed my roommate giving up soda for Lent, and frankly, I don't want to wind up drinking beer with breakfast, lunch and dinner.
I've always thought this tradition would be easier if I did do something truly bad, like watching those reality-based TV shows. But I don't. Rather than taking up "Survivor" or crack just to give it up for six weeks, I finally decided to do something good for myself for Lent. I gave up being a lazy, out-of-shape wimp. Because God likes washboard abs, right?
Holy war
This weak attempt at being a holy person has led me into something of a new subculture, if you will. I haven't thought of a term for it, but this subculture includes people, myself now included, that go to area fitness clubs and break themselves for some reason. I imagine many of them are there still trying to cling to those New Year's resolutions. Others might be like myself, and killing themselves for a personal holy war. The rest, I'll admit, baffle me.
The athletic club scene provides a person like me with all sorts of ways to potentially humiliate myself. I used to be an athlete in high school, but that never meant I mastered the art of running on a treadmill and simultaneously trying to watch TV. It's not as easy as it looks. I figure if I fall off the back of a treadmill on my first day, I'll be too embarrassed to ever show my face in a health club again. So no matter how much I want to, I force myself to ignore "Who's Line is it Anyway?" on TV. That means I concentrate and stare straight ahead. The problem there is that if I look forward, I'm forced to look into a mirror and watch myself run. Pretty much the entire place is covered with mirrors, so that means I have to always watch myself struggle.
This is rather sad, too, because I previously had an image of myself looking like a back-up dancer in an old Paula Abdul video when I work out. But the mirror doesn't lie, and I look much more like a would-be victim in a bad horror movie trying to escape the predator than like some stud grinding on Abdul.
Then there's the embarrassment of trying to figure out the weight machines. I wonder how many people must have been giving me weird looks in these last three weeks now that I've just learned that I was operating a machine backwards? I guess I should just be thankful I didn't hurt myself. In hindsight, I thought those weights seemed to be raising and lowering rather close to my head.
Lust for life
For a while, I was beginning to have self-doubts. Why do this? Why does anyone do this? Being sore and physically spent after a day at work hardly seems like a lifestyle that will allow me to last long in this world. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should have given up double-decker burritos.
The doubt in my mind grew even larger when I was forced to skip a couple days of working out. Good excuses always, like a friend leaving town or the Jayhawks playing in the NCAA tournament, kept me away from the athletic club for four days straight. How easy it would be to just quit and switch to something else to give up. I could burn my membership card. God would understand.
But then, when a Sunday afternoon had me keyed up because of Monday deadlines, I decided to get back to the gym. Once again, I stared at myself in the mirror, watching as I seemed to be slowly killing myself. In the locker room, a guy named Dean struck up a conversation with me. Dean seemed like a level-headed guy. Maybe he could explain this whole work-out subculture. I asked him why were we there, why were we killing ourselves?
"Because we want to live," he responded.
It dawned on me that since I started working out, I've felt better, I've slept better and I've even been more productive at work. So that's why these people all pack the athletic club everyday. It's not a holy war or a New Year's resolution. It's just good for us.
I'm not sure if I impressed anyone upstairs or not, but so far, my 2001 Lent seems to be going rather well.
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