The biggest news I have for this week is Mike and I took a new class at the Y together.

I know. Living la vida loca. Right?

My standard thirty-second internet research showed that PiYo was developed by a trainer whose photos indicate she hasn’t discovered the joys of the meat-and-microbrew diet I’m currently on. That and the fact that PiYo is not named for a Rocky Balboa-inspired desert were kind of letdowns.

It’s supposed to be a mash-up of Pilates and Yoga. I haven’t done a lot of either, but I imagined a quiet hour of classic yoga poses like “Is That My Feet I Smell” and “I Slept Wrong, Now I Got This Krink,” with some leg pulses. Or something.

Since Mike started working at home with me, we have way more flexibility in our schedules for working out together. I’m not sure why we think this is a good idea. We have vastly different physical abilities and I’m weirdly competitive about stuff that shouldn’t inspire competition … or hostility for that matter.

It’s harder to compete than you might imagine when you’ve got the stature of a leprechaun, and your rival is more like Sasquatch, but with less hair and better posture.

Mike’s currently dealing with a shin splint issue, which has him curbed from the running thing for a little while. He missed the half marathon this last weekend we’d been training for, although he is such a good sport he showed up to cheer me as I hobbled across the finish line.

Just in case you’re in the market for a new workout, I’ll offer up the follow car-ride home review of PiYo. Kind of our own Siskel and Ebert thing, with less popcorn.

I’m not going to tell you who’s who. You get to guess (hint: Mike’s the one who has actual experience with Pilates and Yoga. I’m the one more likely to talk about venting my aggression, and jazz hands. But it’s really not necessary to keep track):

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So, that was more intense than I expected. Right from the beginning. When we started in with the side-to-side thing, I kind of felt like we were getting back to aerobicize. I had to stifle my jazz hands.

My favorite part was finishing.

No doubt. My legs are still shaking. I didn’t expect that kind of workout.

Me either. Yoga is so calm and Pilates isn’t fast paced. That was hard.

I thought the hardest part was the abs. I want to kill someone when I have to do planks.

When we were doing sit ups, and then lifting one leg, and then the other, and then lifting our entire body off the floor and balancing, I couldn’t figure out a way to modify that.

I’ve never been able to do an actual sit-all-the-way-up in my entire life. I just did crunches. I carried two kids in this belly. They stole all my muscle tone.

Those bastards. They ruin our lives and eat all our food.

I thought this would have been easier on my legs after my run. But no.

My legs are still sore from it.

My abs are sore.

My stomach muscles were clenching up so much I was afraid to drink afterward. Like anything I took in was all going to squiiiitch {pinches fingers together like he’s blowing a booger out of one of those baby bulb-things}.

A human geyser. I’m glad you spared all of us that.

Our bodies didn’t even know what muscles to use. They’re like, what the hell is this? I don’t know what we’re DOING, I’m going to use ALL THE MUSCLES.

We worked way harder than all those other people who knew what they were doing.

You know how we had to do those leg lifts, to a count of four, then two then one? You’d never do that kind of count in a Pilates class. You put that kind of repetition and speed to something like that, it really ratchets up the intensity.

I was just focused on not falling down.

Remember how you asked me “You think we’ll sweat?” That’s funny.

I was a mess. I’m lucky I didn’t sweat more or I would have been slipping all over the floor. You looked like you were going to melt into a puddle.

I think there were people in there who were not sweating as much as we were.

I wanted to push them down.

That could get us kicked out of the Y.

So, thumbs down, or thumbs up?

Thumbs up. You?

Me too.

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Next up for this intrepid workout duo: TRX, which my thorough thirty-second research reveals is loosely based on the Shades of Grey Red Room of Pain (totally a guess from someone who has neither seen the movie nor read the book). I’m wondering if we need to pick out a safety word and wear leather.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

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Photo by Nicolas A. Tonelli (and actually called “Windmill”)