a day in the life

By: Dave Cavanagh

It's 4:15am, it dark. I mean dark, dark. The moon has called it a night and the sun's alarm hasn't gone off yet. The other side of the bed is a bustle and suddenly empty. I'm not a morning person so the rest of this is blurry at best. You can hear the rustling clothes on hangers, the flicking of the on/off switch to the bathroom light,  and the water turning on, off, on again, and off again. Then the refrigerator opens and closes. Then silence falls the tiny apartment shared by the "cutest couple known to man" (not my words). The silence is almost long enough for me to drift off again, suddenly dishes are in the sink and the front door opens and closes, though it never seems to get locked. It's not a normal routine by any stretch of the imagination. Not everyone wakes up before the sun, not everyone beats the opening staff to the gym. Jen does, almost every morning. This is a day in the life of a guy who dates a personal trainer. 
     First off I am really motivated. I have worked out almost every day for 4 years. I pride myself on how I look, how strong I am, and how much better I have become. When I say Jen puts me to shame and makes me feel like I do nothing with my life, its not an over exaggeration. It's, in fact, a under statement to make myself feel better. I work on a fire department full time, I work two 24 hour shifts a week. I don't even scrap the surface of how many hours she puts into her clients and workouts. Now I wake up at 8-9 o'clock on my days off. Jen has been at the gym for almost 4 hours by that point. Right now because of extenuating circumstances, we are down to one car (and it's not doing too hot right now either but that's life right) so I wake up to her coming home on during her free 30-45 mins. She doesn't even look like she has broken a sweat yet. We discuss the day so far, her funny clients, her tough clients, whats ahead for her, and what I plan on trying to get done while we eat breakfast or in Jen's case second breakfast. On average, a 150lbs person doing one hour of high intensity circuit training will burn 756 calories. Even if she took it easy we can estimate Jen burned well over 1500 calories before I even woke up. Yet she's still as chipper, energetic, and as beautiful as the moment I met her even though she still has a long day ahead. I finally get dressed and its off to the gym for us.
     I can admit now that before I met Jen, I was doing a lot of excising. I was in good shape, looked good, and felt good. After I met Jen, I began training. For what you ask, who knows. Life, my future job ( I wasn't a firefighter yet), or maybe just because. Her love of the human body and what it can do is amazing. She's on client number 3 or 4 by now. Still smiling, rooting them on, and above all still doing every exercise in some fashion with them. Every movement is very particular, if you are lucky she forgot the weighted vest that day or if you are really lucky she left it at home to give you a day off. I'm kind of client number 5, I am still learning myself on what to do with my injuries cropping up all the time or my bad joints acting up. I catch her from time to time making sure my breaks are not too long and my form is perfect. Trust me, I can't cheat with my workouts. The clients get days off, I don't. Client leaves, client comes in. Recently she's been giving me stink eye on my lack of cardio endurance so today I will stay past my 2 hour mark and ride the bike, just to make her happy. 
    I'm done for the day but it's time for Jen to switch costumes. Now she moves on to the local gym to be the on duty personal trainer. You heard me right, its now 11 maybe 12 o'clock and she's starting her second job. This works out to be something like 8 hours of free, yes you heard it right, free personal training for the members. Mostly they are middle age to older clientele told by the doctor to hit the gym or see an early exit. It hard I know, but only 46% of Americans get regular exercise. Not good enough for the world's best country. Right now, Jen is lucky enough to have the New Year Resolution flock still keeping her busy and on her toes. Before I leave I always force food on her, weather it's my protein bar or shake because I know she hasn't eaten enough. A person who does just regular exercise should take in upwards of 56 grams of protein a day, of course that has huge variables but for now just say its true for everyone. It's hard to tell the trainer to eat, not hard for the trainer to tell you what to eat. 
     Time goes by and I get sparse text messages, about the nice people she meets or the evil people she has to deal with. Sometimes a get a phone call to tell me how I am missed or a funny story she heard. Its quick, couple of minutes but it's all she has. Every half hour she has a class. Each body group broken down, cycling through as the day progresses. By 3:00pm, Jen's done 3 to 4 full body workouts in the 11 hours she's been awake. Finally, 7:30 rolls around. Today I got lucky, her evening client bailed but rescheduled for tomorrow morning. There goes her break, but it doesn't bother her. This is where I sound bad. I can't cook very well, I am your typical guy. I can muster up something sometimes but usually it comes out flavorless or burnt. She cooks, I help. That's how amazing this girl is, 16 hours after she woke up and she's cooking for me.
      Now the sun's long called it a day, our stomachs are full so its time to unwind. Jen and I will spend sometime mapping out the plans for our new gym. I'll tell her the spaces I've found, what I learned to help the cause. You can see the excitement building in her eyes, a place for her to train anytime and anyday. I am just happy to have a gym to start really mastering my parkour and teaching it to the new clients it will bring in. But I can see she's worn out, so we drop it, click on the TV. It doesn't take long, it never does but it's 10:00pm and she's sound asleep in my arms on the couch. Tomorrow she will apologize for falling asleep so early but it never bothers me because she is doing what she loves and makes her happy which, as corny as it sounds, makes me happy. I always wanted to be a superhero growing up, I never thought I would end up dating one instead.