Unannounced Breakfast Fun with my Gym Girls!

Sometimes I forget how far I’ve come since I joined the gym a few years ago. Before the pandemic shut the gym doors, I was there every day but in a much different physical capacity. I would not have even been able to walk across the gym floor with relative ease let Alone stop and approach a woman who I might have seen every time I went. Which was not the two hour every day deal I practice now.

As time went on, the gym reopened and masks slowly came off. Even now there are a select few who choose to wear theirs and no one judges them. It’s just a part of life now that’s the way it is.

So when masks started to come off and so felt comfortable enough to approach a woman who was there in the grind like me, I did so. For the most part the ladies wanted to share their mobile numbers with me because they did think it would be fun to get together with other girls like them at planet fitness who would never get a chance to get to know each other and form a friendship.

I have always been social in nature. Never shy I was always putting on a show, whether it was singing or marketing someone else’s business be it a restaurant or tradeshow exhibit company. It’s all the same. Intrigue people enough to make a purchase it what marketing is about. Intriguing someone enough to sit in a seat and come to your shoe when they could be doing a million others things was not easy. Especially from the comfort of their own homes. But this group would be different. I had already had a successful training program for women back in the 90s when I first became a personal trainer. The women were motivated to exercise and come out, even in the rain if it was light enough. These women had former friendships and were going through the same boot camp style workout program with each other. All I was hoping for was a simple breakfast, indoors, a quick drive across the street at a local Panera Bread. This shouldn’t be too hard.

At first there were four, then six and then it kept growing. I wonder how many will join us next month when I do a holiday Grab Bag, where you purchase a $5 gift, wrap it up, have it displayed on a table with the other gifts and either pick a gift from the others when it’s your turn or steal the gift the last person chose. I cannot believe the excitement surrounding this activity. The most I’ve done was a round table where everyone shared something about themselves like what they were grateful for. It was right before thanksgiving after all.

At our last breakfast two weeks ago, one of our girls lost her father in law in the day of the breakfast. It was so sad, but he didn’t suffer for long before he was put into hospice care. Another had gotten into a car accident at the intersection at our gym and she was without her own wheels and recuperating from the shakeup. She is a cardiac patient with a defibrillator implanted (just like my grandma had), She just had some chest discomfort temporarily but is back at the gym now.

This breakfast would be in between our other evite announcement more official monthly breakfasts. I felt it would be good to just tell a few women I came into contact with but more low key. There were fix of us in all at tables next to each other where we usually die but it was a very different feel where we’re had good conversations without having to wait out turn with an announcement go go next. I think both have their place but this one was just a special makeup one for two special ladies who were there from the beginning for our group. Founding members if you will?

I also had not given one of our ladies a motivation rock that I had made just for her. Ii chose the word legendary because that’s just what she is. To all of us at Planet Fitness. There are very few and far between who do not know her and she is a social butterfly. Reminds me of me a bit! She is legendary and that’s what her motivation rock says.

Little did I know she baked me an Irish soda bread and gave it to me as I exited Planet and exchanged her jacket with her and the rock I had put in her right pocket. She had left her jacket on a hook in the locker room the other day and I was holding it for her in my trunk.

We have become good friends and I look forward to seeing them at the gym and off the gym floor, too. It had opened up my world to new possibilities. I’ve brought people together before why couldn’t I now? Because I have limited mobility and have MS? When I used to think it was plastered on my forehead and I was stricken with something like the plague when parents would move children quickly out of the way so they didn’t get hurt as I walked by on crutches. When a kid would stare at my leg when they was my Walkaide and wonder what it was. Or when I had a leg brace, especially a CBrace which looked like a terminator leg because it was robotic. I just thought I was branded and doomed from ever having close friendships again. I couldn’t get around much either beforeI had my car modified eith hand controls.

So this group also reminds me that anything is possible if you just plan and think of how you can make something happen. Within reason though a don’t overextend yourself and always ask for help when needed. You’d be surprised at what you are capable of. You don’t know unless you try. What’s the worst that woukd have happened? No one would have wanted to have breakfast? So what. Nothing changed, we’re still going to the same gym I didn’t lose that. I am very thankful for people always looking out for me at the gym, and now some of them are even close friends. And for that I am completely grateful.