This past week, as our season ended with a loss in the quarterfinals of the WNIT, my teammates and I had some time off - an entire week when we were not expected to be active, touch a basketball or think about sweating. It was a novel concept for many of us.
For the first day of this week, I was at a loss. Rather than ponder my new unlimited amount of free time and the options to fill it, I slept. For eight to 10 hours.
My mother called, left three voicemails, her voice climbing steadily in panic with each one. The final one, received 30 minutes before I woke up from my coma, went something like, "If you don't call me back in the next hour, I'm calling the police. I know you have your cell phone young lady, and if you don't then I'm calling the police!" Go back and reread this at about the octave of that high note Mariah Carey hits in all of her songs. You know the one.
I knew I could not waste the next day in my bed, no matter how comfortable it was. This unprecedented amount of time was still mind-boggling to me - no four hours lost in the practice gym, or another two hours spent laying around too exhausted to shower. Those two hours were often my favorites, as my roommates and I would text back and forth - despite being a hallway apart - about how we just could not make it to the shower. But maybe after another hour spent recuperating we could think about dinner?
So now, an immeasurable amount of time had been added to my day, and I was at a loss. My first thought was to catch up on homework, but I quickly dismissed the idea. These glorious hours would not be spent in Clemons doing the responsible thing. No, I was going to get crazy.
Two days later and three four hour-long naps later, I found myself starting to miss the activity. It was midway through the off week, and a coalition of my similarly confused teammates had formed our annual alternative conditioning week group. We lovingly had given this name to the off week last year, as we knew that truly taking the week off meant that returning to postseason workouts would be like ripping out stitches and gluing the wound shut with a glue stick - in short, painful.
Our first activity was a circuit on the cardio machines at the Aquatic & Fitness Center. This was surprisingly more difficult than I imagined. We avoided the pool. During last year's week, as we envisioned ourselves as graceful dolphins gliding through the water with ease, a lifeguard asked us if we would like flotation belts. We got familiar with fitness videos we found on random channels during the afternoon, until we settled on Bikram Yoga. If you are unfamiliar with it, Bikram Yoga is a style of yoga performed in a heated room, typically hotter than 100 degrees.
The first day we underestimated the difficulty of Bikram, and did a cardio workout beforehand. The teacher told us we could take a break whenever we started to feel exhausted. When we expected to contort backwards and touch our elbows together, the room erupted into fireworks, and I most definitely took my break. I never again will underestimate yoga. Alas, ACW is ending, and we return to regular postseason workouts.
Although I relish the week of freedom, it always is short-lived. The end of a season always is sad, especially when you end on a loss. But the empty time after the season has come to its conclusion is nothing to mess around with, at least if you are me and have an irrational fear of losing all the progress I have not made toward my six pack. It's a little shy, but eventually it will peek out from under the winter layer of pudge. I have been telling myself this for several winters now. The point is, even though I love taking four- to five-hour naps and snarling at anyone who tries to disturb me, it's probably not healthy. I missed the gym, and I'm hoping it missed me and my grunts of frustration, because working out is just so hard. Another necessary evil of college life, I guess.
Simone's column runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at s.egwu@cavalierdaily.com.
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