Word: whinge

whinge

\ hwinj \  , verb;

1. To complain; whine.

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               Alex collapsed on the grassy ground in a panting, sweaty heap, taking deep lungfuls of air.  His body ached as he slowly managed to flip himself over to face the sky.  He was so exhausted that he didn’t even care that a small rock was jutting into his shoulder blade.

                “I’m going to die.”  He said, each word interrupted by a deep, panting breath. 

                “No you’re not.”  Rebecca said.  “Now get up.  You’ve still got lots to do.” 

                “Five minutes.”  He said, raising a shaky arm and holding his fingers out for a few seconds before the limb flopped wearily back to the ground.  Rebecca looked at the pathetic, sweat drenched lump that was Alex and sighed.

                “Ok, fine.  Five minutes.  That’s all you get, and then you have to do five more laps.”

                “What?”  Alex said, suddenly finding enough breath in his lungs to shout the question.  “But you said I had to do five when I started.  I should have two more after this.”

                “You would have two more if you weren’t resting now.  A rest, no matter how long, resets the count.” 

                “You.  Are.  Evil.”  Alex puffed.

                “You’ll thank me later, when you’re lying next to your little dream girl.”  She said, confidently striding over to a gym bag lying nearby.  She reached into it and pulled out her cell phone.  She used a timer app to count down to five minutes.  “You’re five minutes starts now, by the way.”  She said, hitting the start button.

                Alex was not in good shape.  His body was big, round, and flabby from years of very little exercise.  For the most part, that didn’t really bother him.  That is, until he met a girl named Leslie.  He felt she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and had developed a massive crush on her almost immediately.  The fact that they were in the same major and had three classes together ensured that he had little trouble seeing her.  He had even managed to strike up a solid friendship with her.  But, when he finally asked her out, she had refused.  Well, refused was too strong a word in this case.  He described it as putting it on hold.  She had admitted that she would be alright with dating him, as she liked him quite a bit.  However, his build was not something she found appealing.  As such, she said she would go out with him if he lost weight.  In fact, her exact words were: “When you have a stomach instead of a belly.”  He had almost immediately gone to the campus gym to get help in doing just that.

                That was where Rebecca came in.  She was one of the personal trainers the gym had.  He had chosen her for two reasons.  The first was that she was the only female trainer, and he figured that meant she would have a better idea of what Leslie would want.  The second was that she was the only trainer that couldn’t be called a ‘muscle head’.  Her build was trim and athletic, with toned, fit muscles that one found in fitness magazines.  The other trainers were large, muscular guys that scared him a bit.  She had even seemed very nice when they first met.  She had been jovial and friendly then.  He soon found there was only one problem with her:  when it came to physical fitness, she had a mean streak a mile wide. 

                She had a tendency to push those she trained to the breaking point, and then double that effort far beyond what the other trainers did.  Alex went back to his dorm room sore, tired, and so sweaty he looked like he had taken a shower with his clothes on.  He woke up every morning in pain, and only his desire to see Leslie made him able to move.  He had lost quite a bit of weight, but that didn’t mean he liked the process.

                Currently, Rebecca was having him run around an open field on campus.  The field was roughly the size of the running track used by the track team, with one key difference.  The field had a long, steep hill that took up a great deal of it.  In the winter, it was a favorite spot for students to sled and roll around on.  But now in the spring, it seemed like it was there to make Alex’s life a living hell.  When she had told him to run around it five times, he had thought that the downhill part would make it more manageable, but he soon found that the steep slope made him work just as hard to keep his balance as he did on the uphill.

                Rebecca had run alongside him the entire time, giving him her own unique brand of encouragement.  This mainly consisted of her shouting in his ear that he was slow and should go faster.  Alex looked at her and hated the fact that she was hardly breathing hard, and there wasn’t a drop of sweat on her body, even though she had been running the same amount he had. 

                “Yeah, right.  Is all that really worth dying over?”  He panted.

                “You’re not dying.  And you wouldn’t be so out of breath right now if you took the stairs like I’ve been telling you to.”  She said, crossing her arms in a combination of annoyance and amusement. 

                “Stairs are the enemy.”

                “Look, if you want to get rid of this,” She said, kicking him lightly in his still ample gut, “you’ve got to put forth a lot more effort than you have been.”

                “More?  You have me doing so much, it’s a wonder I can still move.” 

                “Oh stop complaining.  Anyways, you’re five minutes are just about up, so get ready to move.”

                “And if I don’t?  What if I just stay here until I feel like it?”

                “Then when you do, I’ll make you run ten laps.  With the weights.”

                “You wouldn’t.”  His eyes narrowed as he looked up at her.  Rebecca kept a set of five pound weights made to be worn on the wrists and ankles.  She had put them on him as a little punishment for slacking off, and he had barely made it around the field once.  Since then, she had used them as a threat to keep him moving the way she wanted him to.

                “Wouldn’t I?”  She said, a smug look on her face.

                “Oh god, you would.  Ok fine, I’m up.”  He said, hoisting his body into a wobbly standing position.

                “Good boy.  Now, you’re rest stop is up…now.”  She said, looking at her phone.  Alex knew that meant he had to start moving.  He lumbered off around the track at a slow jog.  Rebecca smirked at his pace.  She calmly went to put her phone away, and then dashed to catch up with him.  Once she did, she immediately started berating his pace again, and ordering him to move faster.  Alex just took it all as well as he could, grumbling and complaining to himself the entire time. 

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Everybody, exercise!  Or, you know, don't.  Whatever you do with your body is fine by me.