What lies beneath

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I had a good introductory session with my PT today -  a warm up jog around the lake, lunges uphill, pole squats, sprints, core work, stretching. It was good. K says I have good muscle structure, which was pleasing to hear. She identified some weaknesses that we're going to work on. Wednesday morning workouts are going to be concentrating on cardio fitness. Saturday mornings will be full body training. I'm looking forward to it. It's so good to be training with someone who will correct my posture as I exercise and pull my body into alignment so I get full benefit from each. Due to my body mechanics there are stretches that are totally ineffectual if I do them on my own. There's just not enough length in my bones to stretch out the muscles that are just the same as yours but confined to a smaller scaffolding.

I have a feeling though that this training is going to bring things up that are lurking below the surface. As K was telling me to sprint the last legs of each circuit I heard myself saying, "But I can't run fast!" As she encouraged me to run on my toes, not letting my heels strike the ground I felt stupid and said, "I can't! I don't know how!" I felt stirrings of being back at school again and being the slowest, the least fit, finishing last and the one that would lose a game. I began feeling embarrassed, apologetic, ashamed.

K did everything right. If she saw me lose balance she'd encourage me to switch on my core, with specific instructions about how to do that. There was a lot of, "Good! That's it! Keep going! Nice balance! You're in the zone! Good focus! You have good muscle structure!"

I needed that...because the urge to be apologetic was strong. And what am I apologetic about??

I don't know.

Maybe I do....I still feel the need to apologise for this "package".

Why?