Fathlete and Friend do the Zumba!

Sadly, there are no pictures of my friend Lauren and I doing the Zumba class at my gym yesterday, but I can sort of describe the scene - tiny young girls with no rhythm fleeing for their water between every song, because they have no body fat and no endurance, and Lauren, an experienced salsa dancer, literally bopping up and down between songs like "Where's the music? Let me at 'em!"

Let this be a lesson to you, young ones. Just because you're young and tiny doesn't mean you have any sort of fitness level. And just because you're about 30 and curvy, like Lauren, or pushing 40 with a preponderance of back fat, like myself, doesn't mean you can't kick butt.

And we kicked that Zumba's butt all over the place!

Hells yeah!

A Fathlete Reclaims Her Former Glory...

...or at least gives it a good, flabby try.

On Friday, I finally picked up my new orthotics, which cost about eleventy-three dollars. However, they're my magic key to getting back on the road, to sort of being the runner I used to be, sorta kinda, and to maybe getting back the almost 38-year-old version of the body I had when I did my marathon in 2005.

Then again, this body, in its current flabbier state, danced me to a third-place victory in the not epic but insanely fun 2009 Dancing For The Stars competition last week at the Kravis Center here in bee-yoo-tiful West Palm Beach. When I watched the video, I was alarmed at the preponderance of back fat (and look for my upcoming autobiography - "Leslie Gray Streeter: A Preponderance of Back Fat") but thrilled at how much I looked like I knew what I was doing! It looked so effortless, particularly the steps that took me forever to get, like the sequence of fast kicks in the beginning.

I was rewarded a 10 by Hillie, one of the awesome judges, mostly because of my joy and because she saw me in one of my earlier rehearsals, when I looked like a manatee trying to audition for "A Chorus Line." I will hold onto that 10, and onto this awesome disco ball trophy, like Miss Havesham held onto her wedding cake.

Try and stop me.