Chapter 9: Training

Pam began the process over, asking if the caller wanted to advertise on the vinyl phonebook cover and then discussing how much the ads would cost. If the customer seemed uninterested, she then chopped the price down, and if there still was no interest, Pam grumbled a half hearted goodbye and hung up. After about half an hour of this, she stood up and announced that she needed a cigarette.

Pam didn't invite Hayden to join her and just walked away to go to the canteen. Hayden was too busy jotting down notes to care. Once Pam was gone, it gave Hayden the freedom to pick up the woman's order forms that were to go to the printers.

It was just a mess of crossed out amounts and circled names and she could not make hide nor hair of it, so she disregarded it wondering if she might have actually been better off staying the cleaning woman. Then Hayden scanned through the training material that Mr. Fox had given her and found a list of ad sizes with price amounts. Based on what the board indicated, more than half of their cover had already been sold. She tuned to the other people in the room, listening to what they were doing, and in that way, Hayden began to teach herself how to sell advertisement space on a phonebook cover.

Todd was on the treadmill right next to her bike and he was pounding away at a full out run. Hayden had been pedaling for 30 minutes and he had not slowed his pace once. She had long since stopped equating Todd's fitness with his muscle size. The man was a freaking rock!

Wiry muscles lined his arms and he often times wore loose fitting shorts that did little to conceal thundering legs and a boulder butt. Long ago she had considered him to be an Average Joe that looked a little like that actor Adrien Brody—well Adrien Brody with a hyped up body. Not a bad combination in her opinion, but she now gave him much more credit in the looks department.

However, Hayden's appreciation of Todd's looks was no indication of any type of romantic notion. Her trainer was quite obviously in love with his wife and her two sons from a previous relationship. Besides, the idea of love just made Hayden feel cold.

After another five minutes of rapid pedaling, Hayden managed to throw him a scowl. "What are you doing, trying to show me up?"

Todd gave her a sheepish look and slowed his run to a fast walk. "Sorry. I decided to do the Zombie Run this year. I haven't jogged in a while and I need to get back into condition."

She snorted. "Back in condition?"

"Well, runner's condition." He pressed stop on the treadmill and hopped off.

"I was just kidding Todd. Don't stop running," she huffed breathlessly as she continued pedaling. "You're giving me motivation to keep pushing it. Notice that I passed the thirty minute point?"

He looked at the time on her bike and smiled. "Damn girl – you go!"

She smiled proudly.

"Ten more minutes and then you can stop."

"Wha-?"

"You can do it, Hayden. That will put you at forty-five minutes."

She would throw up before she got to 45 minutes… but she didn't. With pride, she climbed off the bike ten minutes later while Todd gave her a loud applause.

"Hayden, do you realize that you can now ride a bike non-stop for twelve full miles?"

Her hands were resting on her bent knees as she tried to find her breath. She watched fat drops of sweat hit the floor with a soft yet repetitive ping. She lifted her head to look at him, causing the rivulets of sweat to run down her neck. "What's a Zombie Run?"

"Come on; let's walk before you tighten up." As they made a circuit around the gym, Todd explained that each fall his fire department hosted a 50K marathon where the participants dressed as zombies.

"Fifty K?"

"That's just over thirty-one miles." His head snapped back around to her. "You know what Hayden, you should join it."

She made a rude noise with her mouth.

"No, seriously. You just did twelve miles without stopping."

"But I was riding a bike-"

"It doesn't matter. It's still cardio."

She gave him a doubtful look. "I don't think I can run for thirty-one miles."

"Not even if zombies were chasing you?"

She smiled.

Todd stopped walking and gave her a serious look. "Hayden… I don't mean to pry but… well; you don't seem to take much pride in your accomplishments." Hayden's mouth opened to protest, but Todd stopped her. "I know you're working hard and really pushing yourself, but do you realize the great strides that you've made in the last two months?"

She looked at him with confusion. "I'm still shaped exactly the same, even if I have lost a couple of pounds."

He shook his head. "You're a work in progress, but you're not the same. You can do forty-five minutes of cardio, and that's nothing to sneeze at. Look, I would never suggest you do something that I knew you couldn't. I believe that I can get you in condition to run a fifty K."

She considered his words and thought about how she could now walk up the four flights of stairs to her job each morning without breathing hard. Also, how she had tightened the drawstring on her workout pants to keep them from dropping down her smaller hips.

"Okay," she said slowly. The idea of running a marathon—hell just running in general, scared her, but… "Yeah, I'll try it."

He smiled and clapped her on her shoulder. "Awesome. We'll start training at our next session."

Hayden dragged ass into her second job later that evening, grateful that she would be sitting for the next four hours. This was her third day as a Telemarketer and she had yet to sell one ad. Yet at least she now understood some things better. The entire room was split into sales teams; hers seeming to be a band of misfits that all of the other teams had probably rejected like the kids in school that no one picked to be on their dodge ball team.