If there’s one word that would not be used to describe me, it would be “athletic.”

I never played sports growing up. Never was much for joining a team. I played around here and there.

And there was the exception of a football/rugby-style game my brother played with his friends they would let me join in, the object being to catch a football tossed in the air and then run while the rest of the players try to tackle you to death.

I’m surprised, thinking back on it, that they even let me play.

But I think I made the game more interesting considering as soon as the pack of wild boys came after me I would chuck the ball high up into the air, sending it into the arms of another, which was sort of the point.

Come to think of it, I don’t really know if that game had a point.

Though I’ve never really gotten into sports, I can’t help but think now, as I watch scores of minivans and sport utility vehicles go and park in some wide-open field on weekend mornings or weekday evenings, parents lined up along soccer lines or perched on baseball field bleachers, that maybe it would have helped to be more active as a child.
Maybe my body would be better prepared for me now.

I live a pretty hectic lifestyle.

Even now, as I type this, I’m running a little late. I had a hard time coming up with something and the holiday week, missing a day of work, getting caught up in court covering exams and probation violations put me even further behind in my schedule.
Evenings are booked up with a second job and part of my weekend is spent writing for a third.

There’s a film festival next weekend that I need to be prepared to devote 48 uninterrupted hours to and reviews to be turned around just as quickly.

Somewhere in between I try to keep up with the mail that comes to my crapartment and try to keep it from building thick layers of dust around the corners.

My shoulders, which seem to be pretty easy to cry on, are often booked.

I don’t spend nearly as much time as I should with my family.

There are a lot of other things I’d rather be doing just about every minute of the day.
Hectic at best.

Thankfully, due to a recent schedule change here at work, I’ve been able to open up four days out of the week to return to the gym.

I was never active growing up.

And I can’t remember what it was that led me to get over my fear of my own self-consciousness once-upon-a-semester-in college and get into working out.

But I did. And, pun fully intended, it worked out for me.

I’m not totally versed on health and fitness. I’m working on it.

But what I aim for is the burn, the pain of the muscles that have been extended, the pushing of the limits.

If I do five miles on something, I want to do 10. If I row 2,000 meters, I want to row 5,000.

In the morning, I want to be so sore it’s hard to move.

Which is exactly how I felt the other day, waking up, moving toward the kitchen ever so slowly, my calves screaming at me.

There’s something about pushing the body to its limits, something many of these hardcore workout outfits that I’m hearing about these days, focus on.

Pushing the muscles as far as they can go and then doing it even more the next day.

I’m no way near hardcore.

But I would like to be.

It’s a metaphor really.

As almost all things in life are.

Sometimes I think I feel a difference. I know I walk out of a workout feeling as though I’ve accomplished something, no matter how small the feat.

But sometimes I think it’s doing no good. I wish I were young again and maybe I could harness that 5-year-old energy I once had to keep my body prepared to deal with me.

As I sweat it out on a bike or a rower or an elliptical machine, my earbuds blaring my music in my ears, I try to convince myself that there are other ways to push myself to the limit.

Mentally, emotionally and physically. Sometimes you can really feel it – that push, that movement. Sometimes you can’t feel anything at all. But you keep going. Right now, my calves are screaming at me.

But I don’t mind the noise.

Jessica Sieff reports for the Niles Daily Star and Edwardsburg Argus. E-mail her at jessica.sieff@leaderpub.com.