Zumba Maz Style

I was on my way to the Mercado last week when I saw a friend of mine in the plaza, Rosie.  Rosie plays poker with us and is the wife of one of Bob's buddies. She's originally from here and speaks a little English which is why I really love hanging out with her.  She forces me to converse in Spanish which I have enjoyed.


She asked me one day what my morning routine was like...if I were an early riser? I replied 'no, not normally, why do you ask'?  She said she was looking for a friend to work out with and wondered if I would have any interest.  Hummm?  Well, I'm thinking I need this and a buddy would make it that much more fun so there I go saying "Yes" with a big smile on my face.  Let's do this.  What time do you want to meet tomorrow, I ask.  She said 6:30 a.m.   As you can imagine my mouth dropped.  Do you know how much I HATE hearing an alarm go off these days?  I said, "really"?  She laughed.  There I go again saying "OK, No problem"!  


The 1st morning we walked about an hour & half at a nice pace.  The Malecon was full of walkers, joggers, bicyclist, and skaters.  It was beautiful morning and I was so glad I made the effort to get up.  As we walked, we came across a dance studio offering Zumba classes.  I love Zumba as well as Rosie so we decided our activity for the next day was Zumba.  Classes are only 20 pesos ($1.70) a day or 50 pesos ($4.20) for a week.  


I had every intention of buying a bottled water on my walk to the class but nothing was open at that time.  I left the condo at 6:40 a.m. to arrive for the 7:00 class.  O well, it's just an hour and I'll tough it out.


The class was small; 6 of us and no A/C.  The studio had several freestanding fans circulating so, it wasn't too bad.  Now, I take some pride in being able to shake my booty to some tunes but WOW, I was next to some 20 something year old who was amazing.  So wouldn't you know that seeing her made me add more flavor to my dance moves.  So much so, that I almost pass out.  If the class were 5 mins longer, I'm pretty sure I would have collapsed. At my age this urge to be competitive is going to kill me.   


I did dehydrate myself.  No water, no A/C and I sweated my booty off during that hour.  It took me awhile to muster the energy for my 15 min walk home but fortunately small corner stores where open.  The 1st one I found I got a large bottled water.  I had the headache, dizziness and the nauseous feeling.  For some of my blog readers I had written about Pedialyte 3 years ago.  I still swear by that stuff.  Water wasn't cutting it and as soon as I bought Pedialyte and drank it, I felt 100% better.  I think I'm going to have to make popsicles of this stuff and eat one every night.


Today was my 2nd Zumba class and I'm very happy to write that drinking water during the class really made a difference.  No dehydration, no headaches and I felt fabulous after the class.  And yes, my 20 year old motivator was in class next to me.  I haven't committed to Zumba for a full week.  I like it but it's still not the Zumba I do on DVD.  The studio does 30 mins of aerobics first (which I hate) and then the last 30 mins is actual dancing.  What I do love about it; is the atmosphere and I've met some really nice girlfriends.  So, I'm thinking twice a week will do for me at this time.