Training in Love by Manuela Pigna Page A

Linda tries to
tell me that the different levels don’t exist. Here’s what I was talking about!
Here are the levels! When you belong to Andrea’s level, you’re even more hot
after doing sports. The people at my level are not fit to be seen.
    “Let’s
do some stretching,” I hear his voice behind me.
    “We
usually do it after…” I protest weakly.
    The
stretching session is that painful moment when, every blessed time, Andrea
tries to put his hands on me – in a purely innocent way, of course – and I… lose
it. Completely. It’s just that I can’t resist the impulse to pull away from
him. I simply can’t stand for someone like him to touch all this… fat. So he
tries to do something that he’d do with anyone else, even with my grandmother
for instance, and I – as a total nutcase, I realize, and this is probably the
worst thing! – flee, attempting to hide the fact that I’m fleeing. I badmouth
him and create other lovely scenes that I’d like to avoid remembering at the
moment.
    “Today
we’ll do it before.” I’m not sure, but there seems to be a slight note of
challenge in his tone.
    Without
saying anything, I slowly come closer and stop a good fifty centimeters away.
Andrea puts himself in a position which I copy. He does another and then
another. At the fourth I draw a breath of relief. Maybe he’s finally got it!
After about ten minutes we begin my workout. He has completely recovered his
breathing – now it seems as though he didn’t do anything and just arrived from
home after a night of repose.
    “Just
out of curiosity, how much did you do before I got here?” I ask after a bit.
    “I
went around the lake.”
    I
stop. I know that it is specifically prohibited in Andrea’s Ten Commandments
for Running, but it comes out spontaneously. “What?” I ask in a shrill voice.
    He
turns to me, notes that I’ve stopped and comes back. He pulls on my sleeve.
    “You
did what?” I repeat in a voice I don’t even recognize as my own as I follow
him, dazed.
    He
glances at me from his height of one hundred-eighty-eight centimeters. “You
heard me. I went around the lake.”
    This
shocks me to such a point that I can’t speak for several minutes. It’s about
thirty kilometers of track and I, frankly, don’t think I’ve done thirty
kilometers on foot all of last year.
    “You
know how I do this kind of thing?” He breaks the silence after almost ten
minutes.
    “You’re
Superman in disguise?” I answer with a smile. “I bet if I looked at your ID
card I’d see ‘Andrea Clark Colucci’ written there.”
    He
doesn’t laugh, or smile, he looks straight ahead and speaks as though I hadn’t
opened my mouth. “Motivation. It’s motivation that gets you to do incredible
things.” He thinks for a bit and adds, “Motivation together with a precise
limit line in terms of time.”
    I
don’t say anything, he doesn’t seem to be in the mood for pleasant conversation
today.
    “My
motivation is the Iron Man race I’ve signed up for, and the deadline is August
of this year,” he continues, and at this point I feel the obligation to
participate. “That’s great! Where will it be held?”
    He
glances at me. “In the United States.”
    I
just say, “Nice,” a little because he’s too serious today, a little because
we’re already halfway through the workout and I’m beginning to heat up and have
breathing difficulties.
    “At
this point the question is – what is your motivation?”
    I
knew it. I knew that we’d get to something like this and just now, when I can’t
manage to speak anymore or think lucidly. I know he won’t give up until I say
something to him, so I answer almost immediately, “Buy myself some clothes.”
    He
steals a glance and raises his eyebrows. “Really? This is your big motivation? To
buy yourself clothes?” His tone is decidedly scornful.
    “Yes,”
I reply tersely, a little because of his disdainful tone, and a little because
I will never tell him about