Great Music Makes Me Weak in the Knees...and Sore in the Abs

I love to exercise.

No, that's not right.

I love to listen to music. I'm pretty sure I could be convinced to try any kind of workout as long as the tunes are good.

However the problem is that music doesn't just "inspire" me to "go that extra mile." It is my complete power source. If I'm running/jogging/walking my normal "neighborhood loop" and halfway through my ipod dies, then suddenly 2 more miles feel like 20. I become hyper-aware of the pain in my body and my wheezing. Music does a good job of drowning out the wheezing...although I'm sure the people sprinting past me would disagree. They're probably thinking "Aw crap, am I going to have to stop my run to help this loser? And why is she humming Bruno Mars songs in between wheezes?" If the ipod dies, then I can't think of anything else other than how much further I have to go and how bored and miserable I am. Then, I try to be more positive but all I can think about is how I can't think of anything else.

Pathetic. Women's Health is not banging down the door to interview me on my workout habits.

Although, I've learned the degree of awesomeness of the music must be greater than the difficulty/tediousness of the exercise.

Case Study: Spin Class.

I was excited to try Spin Class because I'd heard what an incredible workout it provides. I was even going with friends. I imagined myself really getting into cycling and becoming one of those fit people who takes her bike everywhere, even on vacation, perhaps even planning vacations around beautiful scenery with bike paths.
Here's the problem.
 Spin Class was CRAZY hard. The first 15 minutes were ok. But, the fast paced techno music was decieving. At first I thought, "This is upbeat music. I'm feeling inspired. I can do this." Then the resistence and incline kicked in. I tried to lose myself in the song only to realize, "I don't know what the hell this song is! What genre is this? Are there any words? Who listens to this crap?"
Result: 37 hours later, ok 45 minutes later, Spin Class was over. And from that day on I was officially a Spin Class drop out.

I bring this up because my current workout obsession, PureBarre, is the perfect maxed out combination of fantastic tunes and crazy hard exercise. To watch class, you'd think, "They're barely moving; that can't be hard."  But, moving one leg backwards while contracting muscles and standing on your tip toes is hella hard (I'm trying to bring "hella" back). It starts to burn immediately. It makes you wonder, "How am I able to walk if moving my leg half an inch in one direction hurts so badly?" But, as my legs start to shake and my abs feel the fire, the uplifting sounds of Flo Rida fill the room. My internal monologue turns from "I can't even handle this thigh exercise right now!" to "The club can't even handle me right now." There may even be a day dream of me starring on So You Think You Can Dance?

I'm proud of the fact that I try to exercise every day (and can get my butt out of bed at 5:30a.m. for a 6a.m. Pure Barre class...booyah!) but I'm not good at exercise. In fact I'd venture to say I'm the worst one in the class and the slowest one in the neighborhood. When the teacher says "if you need to, you can put your knees down while you do your push ups," um, guess what, teacher...I'm already there. But sweet tunes help with that too. I'm too busy trying to concentrate on the exercise and silently (sometimes not-so-silently) singing along to Rhianna to compare myself to the svelter, fitter, less sweaty classmates. I'm in my own exercise euphoria filled with classic rock, mashed up hip-hop medleys, and guilty pleasure songs...meaning lots of early 90's. Bring it on.