May 5

I have an ambition, my friends: I want to be able to do a pull-up by my fiftieth birthday.

I am exactly nowhere on this goal. Joe was very optimistic that he could coach me to pull-up domination in a month, and then we headed down to the basement pull-up bar together. "Um," he said afterward. "Definitely three months. If you work at it. Maybe not a month."

These are the things he wants me to do:

1. Inverted rows. I am supposed to lie down under the old dining room table in the basement, and pull myself up to its underside. I do not like this, because of (a) potential spiders and (b) actual difficulty. But I have done it twice now. Joe wants me to do three sets to failure. Oh, that's part C of why I don't like it: failure is no fun. It makes my arms hurt. "The fun part," says Joe from his position on the couch beside me, "is that in a week you prolong failure by one more rep and you're like 'yes!' That's a good feeling." 
2. Deadlifts. Joe thinks I could be doing these with 70 pounds, but I roll my eyes at that. I feel like there are all these form details I am supposed to be remembering. I forgot them all between the first time I went into the basement to work on my Pull-up Ambition and the second time. Joe promises he will walk me through it again. At some point he might start requiring a personal training fee if I continue to forget the fine points. ("That's a good idea!" he says as he reads over my shoulder.)
3. Bent-over rows. Again with the form details, only a little less so.

Ten years ago I put "get in shape" on my list of things to accomplish by the time I turned 40. Specifically, I wanted to be able to do a Teaser (that took a lot of work -- my abs were pretty much a marshmallow repository after having five children), and finish the Hundred Push-up Challenge, and run a sub-30 5K. So: triceps for my last milestone birthday, biceps for my next one. ("And back," says Joe. He keeps telling me it's more about my back than my arms.) I'll have to figure out something for my 60th. But first I might have some spiders to relocate, and some inverted rows to suffer through.