The Impact of Friendship on My Workout Routine

And the loss when I must do the heavy lifting on my own

The music blaring in the locker room stopped, the silence golden for a brief five seconds. Then the speakers crackled to life again.

“…say some doors just have to close…”

Silence.

“…don’t tell you how it feels when memories…”

A full seven seconds later:

“…distance slowly steals…”

The over-loud speakers continued this irregular emptiness, leaving random gaps of dead air instead of lyrics while the musician sang on, unheard.

His voice emerged from the quiet to interject a few more words before another cutout. Silence. Then singing. Silence. Again and again.

“Oh my gosh!” I almost said aloud in my frustration to Connie, my workout partner of 22 years. Except she wasn’t there—and may not be there ever again. (I hope I’m being overly dramatic.)

But the elongated hiccups of music and the missing meaning of what the singer was conveying seemed most appropriate.

I was missing Connie.

Saying goodbye

My faithful, early-morning workout partner Connie announced she was suspending her gym membership for two months. It would be a trial exodus from the health club.

“I spend $70 a month once I factor in membership and gas costs,” she explained. “It was different when I had to come in for work anyway.”

Blasted retirement!

I get it. She doesn’t go to work (something she brags—well, bragged—about at least once a day), and nothing is open at 7 a.m. when we’re exiting after our workout. She often must go home to the boonies and then return to town for appointments or errands, at the cost of more gas.

We have spent the last two decades working out together in some form or fashion—step aerobics, aqua Zumba, water aerobics, power line, or our own variety of a workout challenge. I can count on my fingers the number of times we’ve gotten together outside of the gym.

“We’ll have to get together for lunch some Saturday,” she said before we said goodbye after her last gym session on Monday.

But I am not hopeful.

The ‘Bob’ years

We met in a step aerobics class, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 6 a.m., led by Bob. He was a television anchor at the local station and a celebrity in our minds even after he left that role.

He choreographed all his challenging routines, and newbies were at a disadvantage. They didn’t know the steps—and they didn’t know Bob intended they would learn them. Most new people took their place at the back of the class, trying to remain unnoticed while they attempted to follow along.

But Bob always noticed them and would leave the front of the room to do the routine right in front of them to make sure they could match his foot pattern.

You either loved him for it or never came to class again.

Once Bob knew your name, you were in for it. If you got out of step, he called you out, looked you in the eye, and somehow managed to make his steps emphatic, so you could get your act together.

I loved him for it. His most complicated step pattern, which he called the “Shuffle Special,” was my favorite; Bob eventually called it the “Sara Special” just for me.

Connie was always at the back of the class, and her claim to fame was reminding Bob to do the left side when we were doing ab work on the floor. Maybe she had corrected him once or twice when Bob had forgotten to do the left after we’d done the right side, but forever after, anytime he called for the left side, he’d say, “Connie” with emphasis.

I would have been happy to skip both sides, but not one. I did not want to be lopsided.

After the step class

It was when I started getting showered and dressed for work at the gym that Connie and I became friends, not just classmates. Me, the Nervous Nellie who needed to adapt to locker room life. Connie, the generous, seasoned locker room professional who showed me the ropes.

She introduced me to the locker room sisterhood, and when step aerobics went out of fashion, she invited me to join her in Aqua Zumba classes. Doing Zumba under the cover of water made me believe I could dance. We had a blast.

When our instructor ran off to Switzerland to film her own Aqua Zumba videos, Kaylen took over the timeslot with a water aerobics class, where Connie made herself essential by counting.

(Apparently, when you knit or crochet, you count stitches, and nothing could get Connie off count. That woman is an expert with needles.)

From there, we began weightlifting on what the gym called “Power Line.” It was a line of machines that the gym used as the standard for newbies, but we oldies did the line with “power”—adding exercises in between each of the nine machines to ensure we were wearing out every muscle group.

We accumulated other gym friends. The whole group of us would do a machine, then lie all over the gym floor doing planks, pushups, sit-ups, bear crawls, or whatever torture the instructor could devise. Sometimes we’d run to the rowing machines and get in a quick 400 meters in between each set of weights.

(Once, a new young guy joined us and practically passed out. He had to sit and catch his breath, while I went and pilfered a Gatorade from the front desk to boost his blood sugar. I mentioned it to a colleague when I got to work that morning, and she replied, “Man. You’re a badass.”)

We were, and we did it together.

A friend indeed

When Connie told me she might quit the gym, my mind tried to envision solitary workouts instead of working out in solidarity with this woman who has become a dear friend.

She’s seen me sweat. She’s seen me naked. Nearly every day. When I had to shower with bandages after surgery, she wrapped my arm in Press and Seal to keep them dry. When she feared ticks or experienced an allergic reaction to anesthesia, I had to help her out.  She’s altered her workout plans to accommodate my ailments. I’ve altered mine to accommodate hers.

Connie is the queen of life hacks and DIY. She’s lent me socks and belts, given me band-aids and safety pins. I am confident I can handle any wardrobe malfunction when I have Connie to remedy it.

I never told her this, but one of our new gym friends saw me working out without her. He asked, “Where’s your mother?”

I looked at him blankly.

“Connie?” I asked, finally grasping that he meant the gray-haired woman who was nearly always by my side. “She’s not my mother. We’re just friends.”

(We look nothing alike—she’s barely over 5 feet; I’m almost 6 feet tall. And she’s only 16 years older than me.)

“Ooops!” he said, realizing his mistake. “Don’t tell her I said that!”

For weeks afterward, when Connie was beside me, he’d catch my eye when she wasn’t looking and hold a “shhh” finger up to his mouth.

But I was wrong, too. Connie is more than a friend. She’s my treadmill therapist, the one who tells me when I’ve done 11 instead of 10 chest presses, the person I trust to hoist the bar to the rack when my muscles have failed and I can’t help myself, my locker room sister, my confidante, my personal knit-wit (for scarves and afghans and more), and my loyal workout partner…

Until now.

Today, five minutes into my treadmill walk, the line of televisions went black and staticky. No more HGTV to distract me. I was alone. I had no phone or headphones to save me from my solitude, and all our usual friends, full of conversation, were nowhere to be seen.

So, I left the treadmill and moved on to weightlifting. Alone. Then stretching. Alone.

I never felt so bored and unmotivated.

Typically, Connie and I see loads of friends at the gym. Today, as if the universe wanted to emphasize her absence, I saw no one. I spoke to no one. Even the televisions and locker room music abandoned me. But mostly, I missed my workout partner.

In the last few years, Connie has confided that she only comes to the gym because of me.

Trust me, I’ve had weeks and months and even one long Covid year in which I came to the gym without Connie. She’s had surgery, cancer treatments, vacations, and sick time on occasion. If I had only come to the gym because of her, I may have quit years ago.

But today, I felt her absence. I know it’s too much for me to ask her to keep coming just for me. As much as I would like to do so.

I’m the lucky one who spends only $99 a year plus tax on my gym membership, which likely doesn’t even cover the cost of the water I use in the shower each day.

The first two years, it cost me $250 a year, steep for a journalism grad in 1989.

But the yearly renewal after that initial outlay of precious cash has been more than worth the price of admission.

It brought me Connie.

And a terrible sound system in the locker room that punctuates what I am missing.