I Love Jon Baker

I am having a great morning. Despite sleeping for crap (there is a large umbrella in a stand on my landlord’s deck – which is what’s above my bedroom. In the gusty arctic winds, the stand wobbles back and forth. It makes barely a sound from topside as I discovered when exploring the environment at midnight while trying not to look like a prowler. But from below decks, sounds like someone is rolling a bowling ball around above my head.) and getting up at 5:45 am to venture into the tundra (ok…minor exaggeration), I am feeling energized (check in with me around 2pm) and inspired.

Because I love Jon Baker.

Jon Baker (I like to call him by either his whole name, or just Baker) is my personal trainer at the gym. And this morning I told him “I am so glad you were the one who answered the phone that day when I called!” Because, for the first time in MONTHS I feel inspired. And have the utmost confidence that I will get to a place where I feel strong again.

Baker told me to believe that I can achieve much more than I think I can, and not to have anxiety about the outcome. Just think of the gym as a room in my home that I just rennovated, painted and decorated. Just show up and enjoy.

We also talk about the biomechanics of things. Which I won’t go into detail about now. But, he gets that my knee bugs me because he has been there. He understands exactly what I need to work on, and more importantly, in what order I need to work on them. He listens to me when I tell him what I have already been through and what I want to acheive. And he explains why we do certain things and how they help prepare us for where we want to go.

He is also 36 or 37 and skateboards to work every day. How sweet is that?

Sometimes you meet just the right person at exactly the right time when you are finally ready to make the committment (it sounds like Im talking about a romantic relationship here, which Im not…though, similar ideas do apply). My birthday let me reflect on my both frustrating (no running) and completely awesome (I love Eldar the MOST!) year. And I have a pretty new Garmin GPS watch to track the journey to marathon 2009. Yay, toys!

I trained for and ran a marathon last year (in a pretty respectable time frame, too!). I can pretty much do anything. So, it’s time to buckle down and make the time.

I am finding that once AT the gym, I enjoy my time there. Jon Baker gives me really cool stuff to work on and it’s actually, dare I say, fun. It’s just getting myself there that I need to make happen. One day at a time.

In the meantime, I plan to text him when I can’t get up from my desk tomorrow due to the super cool sliding lunges we did today.