I need some old man rub

An hour and a half of aerobics at the Suva YMCA and I hurt for a week. We did step-ups on little wooden boxes to songs like ‘jump (for my love)’ and all sorts of bends and stretches and lunges. In pairs one person made an A-frame with their legs and the other crawled between them. We ran laps of the gym. Over and over. Half way through the class I heard a woman begging her partner to let her leave: ‘Please, I promise I’ll stay till the end next week but I just can’t do anymore tonight.’ Our laps became slower and slower. Our clothes were heavy with sweat, our barefeet slipping on the wooden floor. First we ran from end to end, hurdling over the step-up boxes. Then we could only run half a lap. Toward the end we just walked in a circle around our step-up box. It was all we could do not to collapse.