Let me describe last night to you. A spin class, with a trainer named Vincent (who looks like an NBA star just chilling in Mombasa), that is about to start in my small gym on the north shore. I’m in a studio that is full of people who all come from very different places in the world as Vincent turns up the jams, turns down the lights, and starts sweating buckets before he even gets on his bike. This guy is intense.

So intense that I can list the number of people who can keep up with him at the same level in the class: 0. So intense that he can yell “beat it! push those glutes back!” to MJ’s Beat It (check out those italics) and still put fear into my heart that I’m not jacked enough to even be in the same room as him. So intense that he probably catches his own dinner.

It wasn’t meeting Vincent that I didn’t expect to get out of living in Kenya, it was the experience of getting to be in the same room as Vincent, in a spin class, and being able to keep up.To all my friends reading this, I totally agree, since when do I work out?

Last year, my small team in Totem Park had me pushing around House Lounge sofa chairs to try to build up my strength to be able to do a push up. That’s the type of physical fitness I had prior to hanging out with the Kenyan NBA star.

My mother never signed me up for sports as a child. When I asked to join the rowing team at the beginning of high school, she said no out of fear that I would get “man arms” and not find a husband. So, I made a personal goal this summer to get fit. I joined a gym, along with my friends Tess and Virginia, out in an area of Mombasa called Nyali where all of the all-inclusive resorts hang out.

Yeah, it’s kind of random. I came to Mombasa to work for a NGO doing development work for the summer and I end up at a gym with an NBA star for most nights of the week. I feel like I’m finally prepared to work in a Lululemon store now that I’ve got a good story (Kenya, man arms,  NBA star, push back those glutes), if I could ever hold the level of self control needed not to spend my entire pay on items in the store.

The best part is that now that I’ve taken the time to get started and really work at becoming physically fit, I feel like it’s going to be so much easier for me once I return to campus to keep it up. I’m already interested in finding a lunchtime spin class at the SRC, trying out one of the Lululemon in-store yoga classes (I’ve never had the time or the guts), and seeing if I can run farther than a few hundred metres at a time (thanks Hannah for putting up with me in your attempts to get me to run back in first year).

So yeah, working out in Mombasa, how proud are you Shelley L, Justin G, and Ryan A?
PS Ryan,  I’m drinking so much water.