So I joined a gym last month.

I am so guilty of this. I am in an imagined one-sided race with people at the gym and they don’t even know how intense the competition is 😛

I’m not really an athletic person–I got a D- in gym my freshman year of high school, and that was after the A’s and B’s I got on the written tests.  (Deduce your own conclusions from that.)  I’m rather clumsy and uncoordinated.  I’m that girl who trips over her feet and gets visibly flustered, yet does it again roughly fifteen minutes later–I love flip-flops, but I tend to catch the tops of them along the sidewalk for some unforeseeable reason and I always wind up stumbling.  I can’t catch, and my throwing skills are pretty sub par.  If I go to hell when I die, I will spend copious amounts of time being forced to play volleyball and badminton amid the fire and brimstone–my older brother is the athlete of the family, and I am okay with that.

But anyway, I joined a gym.  I figure that a little physical exertion never hurt anyone, and as long as the activities I participated in didn’t involve a single ounce of athleticism I’d be okay.  So I have gone quite a few times, and I like it.  I prefer the elliptical because it feels like fancy skiing (if I knew what skiing felt like, haha) and because it’s a guaranteed sweatfest.  Well…it was.  After the first few times my body got used to it, and I exercised the other day for a half hour without breaking a sweat.  No bueno.  So I hopped off the machine in search of a cardiovascular workout that would make me look like a sweaty mess.

I tried the stationary bike.  I got a little sweaty, but I had to keep messing with the seat because I’m short and I couldn’t find a good height to sit at…plus I kept sliding off the seat because it was at an angle (and it made my ass hurt later.  Now I see why the fitness magazines tell you to bring your own cushioned seat cover.).  I casually made my way over to the treadmill and stared it down for a good thirty seconds–I’m sure the other gym-goers probably thought I was insane, but there was a method to my madness.

I am not a runner.  Not necessarily by choice, more or less by my lack of athletic prowess, my questionable coordination, and the fact that I can trip over nothing.  Oh…and did I mention that I’m a 34DD?  Yeah, that too.  So I turn on the treadmill and put it at 3.5 mph, a good speed for getting my walk on.  The chick next to me is running at a speed of 9.3 mph, and not to be outdone, I crank that shit up to 5.9 mph, bust out that Justin Bieber song that I’m embarrassed to admit I really like (“As Long As You Love Me”), and start running like a cheetah.

…Make that a cheetah with huge boobs and lungs not used to running.  I lasted about a minute and a half before I had to slow my shit down and walk without looking like a winded old lady.  Fighting the urge to hunch over and gasp for breath, I walked it out and attempted to find my inner Usain Bolt.  I made it for about two minutes this time before my chest started screaming at me to stop–it wasn’t that I was out of breath, to my partially winded surprise I actually had found a decent rhythm and was doing okay.  It was my boobs who were threatening to cause a chesty revolution and attack me.  Now I’m used to having to double up on sports bras and the such when I exercise, it comes with the territory, but that day’s choice of a strapless bra underneath a Target sports bra wasn’t getting the job done.  Nay.  I’m sure the boys in the gym enjoyed the show, but I was in pain and I had to jump off the treadmill and call it a day.

Sweaty and broken, I immediately Googled “how to run with big boobs” and found all kinds of sites where girls complained about running with large chests and how it really sucked.  It also seemed like they were running in search of making their ladies smaller–I like being chestacular, I would just like to be able to run without being in pain.  So I have decided to go on the search for the Holy Grail of Sports Bras.  I hear compression bras are the way to go, but I need a really spectacular one to lock these babies down, or my half-assed dreams of running will never be fully acheived.  I have received suggestions of trying the VSX line by Victoria’s Secret, or even Under Armour, which I think I will test out in the upcoming weeks.

Speaking of running, I’ve decided to participate in the Cleveland edition of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.  It’s Saturday, September 15.  I won’t be running in the 5k, but I will be doing the 5k walk.  I’m collecting donations and my goal is $200.  If you feel like donating, please click here.  You don’t have to feel like giving a lot, even $5 will help.

I have mixed feelings on the Susan G. Komen Foundation after all the crap happened with Planned Parenthood funding earlier this year, but I have friends who lost their mothers to breast cancer when we were in high school, one of my former co-workers’ mother had a double mastectomy due to breast cancer, my boyfriend’s mother and sister have both suffered from it, and no woman (or man, for that matter) is immune from it.  I feel like we need to make strides to find a cure for breast cancer, hopefully in my lifetime.  If you choose to donate, thank you and I appreciate it.  If not, please just take the time to do monthly self-exams and stay vigiliant.