Enjoy...

Steph's POV

After they found Lester safe and sound, I was too wired to fall asleep straight away. Lula and I decided to go to Pino's for a late night snack and ended up staying until around 11. I had only been in bed for about 30 minutes when Ranger called. He sounded well and we had a short conversation.

Now, with my alarm going off at 5:30 in the morning, I was wishing I skipped the whole Pino's experience, no matter how much fun we had. I turned off my alarm and slowly sat up. I had 30 minutes to make it down to the gym, so I rolled over and stumbled out into the kitchen to make coffee.

It turned out that Lula beat me to it. There was already a pot freshly made and Lula was already dressed in her gym clothes and ready to go. She took one look at me and said, "Come on White Girl! Today is the first day of our RangeMan career. I'm really excited I could hardly sleep last night."

I smiled at Lula and said, "I just need a cup of coffee and then I'll be ready in a jiffy."

I poured myself a cup of coffee and added the requisite cream and sugar. I then carried said cup of coffee into my room and pulled on some comfortable looking gym clothes. When I emerged 10 minutes later with my hair up in a pony tail and my coffee finished, I felt like a new woman.

I rinsed my cup in the sink, pulled on a pair of trainers and looked at Lula. "You ready?" Lula swallowed apprehensively and nodded as she too pulled on her sneakers. We walked side by side to the stairwell, both looking longingly at the elevator doors.

We arrived at the gym at 5:58. We were two whole minutes early, but so were the guys. The gym was packed with people who stared at us as we entered. I felt like I was in a spotlight of some sort until Bobby came to our rescue and said, "Today is Lula and Bomber's first day. If you guys keep staring at them like you are, you'll scare them away. They were instrumental in finding Lester so we want them to stay."

The guys around the room turned their heads and went back to what they were doing. Several even packed up and headed to the locker room. I smiled and mouthed 'Thank You' to Bobby as Lula and I made our way to him and Tank.

"Good morning Ladies. I'm glad to see that you arrived on time. Bobby and I will work with you this morning on some basic fitness skills. You'll find that this will get easier over time so we'll need to increase the difficulty to ensure a good workout."

I had heard all of this before, but Lula hadn't. She looked like she was really taking this stuff seriously, so I let her pay attention for the both of us.

Bobby directed us over to a set of mats on the floor and showed us how to properly stretch before our workout. He said that it was essential to do a bit of warming up before any exercise or we could injure ourselves. I was stretching my hamstring and I could hear Lula breathing heavily beside me. She was muttering under her breath but I couldn't quite make out what she was saying. She looked a bit uncomfortable so I whispered, "Is everything OK Lula?"

She turned and looked at me as if she'd just noticed I was in the same room as her and she said, "I can't reach my toes. My stomach is getting in the way and I can't reach my toes."

Bobby heard this and said, "We can work on that if you want Lula. A bit of running every morning will help you reach over your stomach and touch your toes."

Lula grunted and said, "I'd rather lose the stomach so I didn't have to reach over it."

Bobby smiled and said, "That will happen as well if you keep up your fitness program. I won't lie to you. It isn't easy and there will be days where you won't want to come down here, but you will see results if you do."

Lula nodded and said, "I remember how good Steph looked the last time she worked here. I can work hard, but I think motivation was what was missing or I'd have done this sooner."

After Bobby considered us warm enough, he led us over to the treadmills. He programmed them so we were walking quickly. After about 2 minutes, I was breathing heavily as the elevation of the treadmill moved up and down. Lula and I both gave up trying to talk and just concentrated on getting through the remaining time. We stayed on the treadmill walking briskly for 20 minutes and both Lula and I were plastered with sweat when we were finished.

Bobby came over and congratulated us on our success. I smiled and Lula said, "Who would have thought that walking up and down hills would be so tiring?"

Tank took over from Bobby at this point. "We're going to spend the next 45 minutes working on some of the resistance machines. These are meant to slowly build up your muscle tone and improve your overall fitness. The more muscle your body has, the better your metabolism and injury recovery times.

"First we'll start with some of the machines and then we can work with the free weights. The first two machines are for your legs. This first one requires you to squeeze your knees together and lift some weights. The second requires you to push your knees apart to raise some weights. I want you to each sit at a machine and try to lift the weights 15 times each. After you hit 15, take a 30 second break and then do another 15 reps. I've put a relatively low weight in to start and we'll build up on that in the future."

I sat at the machine where I had to start with my knees together and push them apart. After I did 8 of these, I was wondering what weight Tank started with because my legs were hurting already. I continued pushing my legs apart, not letting the weights clang as Tank instructed and when I got to 14, I was really struggling. After a brief rest, I repeated my reps and my legs were feeling pretty weak.

I looked over and could see that Lula was counting out loud and she was also struggling. She was sweating, breathing heavily, and when she and I finally finished our last rep, we both sat back and breathed a sigh of relief.

Tank looked at us and said, "Switch machines and do another two sets of 15 reps"

Lula looked at him with her mouth open as she struggled to untangle herself from her machine. I on the other hand, verbalised my disdain. "Don't we get a moment to catch our breath?"

"No. You have to move from machine to machine quickly or your muscles will seize up thinking they're done for the day."

I rolled my eyes and stood so Lula could sit in my machine. I moved over to the other one and experienced the same thing. By the 7th or 8th repetition of the second set, my legs were jelly. After I forced out the last rep, I stood to get away from my machine for fear that Tank would make me do it again.

Fortunately for me he didn't make me do it again, but my legs did go out from under me because they were so weak from my efforts. I fell to my knees and felt like a right idiot. Tank smiled as he helped me up and said, "You'll both be happy that the next set of machines is for your arms."

I groaned a little and Lula followed Tank around the corner, holding on to anything so she didn't fall over. Tank explained how the machines work and we set to it. My machined worked my triceps and Lula's machine worked her biceps. After our two sets of 15 reps, we switched machines. After this, we went to another set of leg machines.

One replicated squats, but with weights. The other required you to sit and bend your legs at the knee to lift a weight. These weren't so hard on the legs as the first set of machines, but my legs still felt like jelly afterward.

Tank directed us to the free weight section. He handed us each a set of 2.5lb weights and showed us how to do several different exercises to tone and strengthen our arms, shoulders and backs. My favourite one was to lie flat on my back with my knees slightly bent. I then stretched my arms directly behind me holding the weights together at a point. I lifted the weight straight over my stomach keeping my abdominal muscles clenched, and once the weights were over my knees, I'd do a crunch. I did 2 sets of 20.

Bobby came back to show us how to cool down and stretch. After putting our muscles through their paces, it seemed to me at least, that the cool down exercises were the hardest of the lot. We had to do 2 30 second planks and then some push ups. We then repeated the planks and the same exercises we did at the warm up.

After 1.5 hours in the gym, I was completely drenched with sweat and exhausted. Lula was also sweating a lot, but instead of looking exhausted like I did, she was looking exhilarated.

Tank must have noticed this as well because he said, "You ladies have done a wonderful job today. Go get cleaned up, but try not to take a shower that's too hot. It will cause your muscles to stiffen. If you find you are getting stiff, do a bit of stretching and drink lots of water."

We both thanked him and headed up to our apartment to take a shower and get ready for the day. Lula looked at me and said, "That was hard, but I actually had fun. Who knew that exercise could be like that? I also didn't mind watching our instructors." Lula grinned and headed into her bedroom to take a shower.

I hope you're still out there enjoying this series. More to come soon.