Operation Marn-Ra, where I transform myself from a mere Warrior Princess to a Warrior Princess Who Can Do a Pull-up, hit a slight snag at the gym yesterday.

It was some American holiday of some sort--National Armadillo Day or something, I don't know. Look, I'm Canadian. I don't pretend to keep track. The point is, the gym was packed with people and even worse, all the guys had the day off and so they all came in mid-morning to work out together.

Thus, when 11:30 rolled around and it was time to do some reverse pull-ups, I did not have the gym to myself. No, not only were the power lifters out in force, but the cardio section was full of women I don't know.

The options were to slink out of the gym quietly and lose some of the momentum I've been building, or do this very odd looking exercise and get teased.

Okay fine.

So I dragged the weightlifting bench over to the cable machine that has a pull-up station built in and began my exercise. Take breath, hop up and grab handles, bend knees, cross ankles and begin lowering body on a ten count, remembering to exhale on the way down.

I got two in before one of the guys caught sight of me.

"You're doing negatives!"

I replied with a neutral, "Mmmhmmm" and braced myself for teasing. Got my third reverse pull-up in. No teasing. Then I realized they were watching me, surprised that I could do it at all. So I went for a fourth and got it in. Normally I would have stopped right there but oh, crap, the guys were watching. In the end I got up to seven before my arms gave out completely.

Apparently there's nothing like the fear of humiliation to push a body to new extremes.

As I dragged the bench back to its normal place in the gym, pretending that my arms did not feel like limp noodles, one of the guys gave me what he thought was a heartfelt accolade:

"I hope that when I get really old like you that I'm still trying that hard."

Here, let me repeat that again so we can all savour the moment.

"I hope that when I get really old like you that I'm still trying that hard."

There was half a heartbeat there where two questions crossed my mind:

1) Would that sentence fit the legal definition of grounds for justifiable homicide?
2) Could I muster the physical strength in my arms to pick up a dumb bell and bludgeon him to death for it?

When I realized that I had to answer "no" to both these questions, I knew there was only one reply possible:

"Why thank you, eh."

I think I prefer the teasing.

--Marn

Mileage on the Marnometer: 218.97 miles. Duckage. My joy knows no bounds.