Skates Out // a Luis Mendoza Fan Fic

20. Work out

Luis. 

We walked into the Anaheim arena gym and saw the girls stretching for whatever they did next, "what are you doing here?" I asked them. 

They shared annoyed looks, "we're here for early morning athletics and fitness training or as we call it torture."

I shared a sceptical look with Charlie, "come on, it can't be that bad it's just a bit of fitness." 

JJ scoffed, "your welcome to join in and find out it's not as easy as it looks." 

"I think you'll find we'll be fine, we're professional athletes." Banks replied.

"So are we genius," Elsa replied, "but if you do decide to join in I suggest you start stretching now, because Ida will be here for ten minutes and if you start you can't stop until it's finished."

They must have thought were weaklings or something, how hard could a little work out be? We had just come here to do some running but this couldn't be much more difficult. We started stretching next to the girls until Ida walked in. "How nice of you to join us boys, although I can't imagine why you would want to." Ida started as she walked in, "alright, we'll start on the treadmill. Turn the incline up to the highest level please." 

The girls groaned as they got up turning to their treadmills, JJ shot me a look that could only be described as 'you hopless idiot', "you have no idea what you've just gotten yourself into Mendoza." she muttered to me getting up on the treadmill. 

We started off on the treadmill for twenty minutes, at the highest speed we could go, or at least the highest speed Ida expeted us to go because if she thought you could run faster then she would increase it. The inscetive to keep running was not smacking flat on our faces because we reached the end of the incline and fell over. 

"Perfect she nodded as the timer finally rang, now we'll go on the real run." Ida directed.

I turned to Viola frowning, "this wasn't the real run?" 

"Yeah, you wish, that was the warm up." She told me retying her laces, "you guys are about to get wrecked. We've been doing this every day since we started on this team and she ups the anti every day, so have fun." 

"I can't belive I'm saying this but JJ was right, we have no idea what wer're getting ourselves into do we?" Banks asked as Ida all but chased us out of the building. But we were all way to scared of her to quit now. 

Apparently the work out was one and a half hours and we were only twenty minutes in, next came the half an hour jog down to the beach, on the beach and then back to the arena. The girls seemed unphased by this first part, but in all fairness they'd done this every day for the last what? Three years? And it's not like we couldn't keep up, we weren't unfit we all did fitness and athletics training for ice hockey, it just usually wasn't this rigourous. 

"Still think you're too fit for this?" JJ asked as she jogged next to me. 

"Naturally." I replied shooting her a grin that seemed to infuriate her. Running wasn't so bad I was pretty good at it actually. "In fact I'm willing to bet on it, how about a little race?"

She smirked, "eat my dust asshole."

We took off down the beach sprinting ahead, JJ was fast I would give her that, definitely one of the fastest people I knew. Still I knew I was faster than her, I sped up over taking her a little before I got ahead of her completely. I arrived at the stairs back onto the street a couple seconds before sh did. "I guess even on sand I'm faster than you, catch Jerome" 

She scowled, "don't get to cocky. We still have a lot left to do." 

When we finally got back to the arena Ida started handing out the skipping ropes, "what is this the school yard?" Banks muttered, "what the hell do we need thes for?"

I gestured to Ida who fished out her stop watch from her bag, "I'm guessing she's about to tell us."

"Fifteen minutes staring now!" She ordered. 

This couldn't be real, skipping for fifteen minutes how hard could that be? The girls grabbed a boom box and cd player before putting in the CD of their choice. JJ winked at me adjusting her ponytail, "try to keep up." 

"Watch me." I replied grabbing my rope. 

When the lyrics of the song started playing we watched astounded as they began, it wasn't just normal skipping it was crossing the ropes and then skipping bacwards and then skipping one one leg and then the other leg all while staying on the beat of the song. 

"Less staring more skipping!" Ida snapped clapping her hands together to get our attention.

This, although I never would have admitted it especially not to JJ's face, was a lot harder than I had expexted it to be. I had never done much skipping unless it was holding one end of the jumrope for my sister, I was completely lost. When the fifteen miutes which felt more like an eternity were finally over we were dragged to the next thing. 

It looked like a ballet studio, "what are we doing here?" I asked confused. 

Viola and Elsa shared confused looks, "isn't it obvious? We're doing ballet." 

Charlie shook his head, "yeah I think it's time for us to bow out. This is too much I'm not fucking doing that, I don't dance."

"Why not?" Elsa asked her hands on her hips, "boxers do it all the time. It's great for your core and balance." 

"Els don't you get it, it's not that they don't want to do it, it's that they can't." JJ said shooting me a pointed look. 

She knew she had me because there was no way I was leaving now, I wasn't about to chicken out of this. "Oh really?" I asked her making my friends groan, they already knew what was about to happen. "Alright watch and learn, I'm about to show you some of the best ballet I've ever seen in my life."

Charlie whacked me on the back of the head, "you idiot, JJ barely even had to try and you went right for it." 

"I am not a quitter." I told him decidedly, "we're finishing this otherwise they're going to gloat for months about how much better than us they are." 

"He's right I'm totally staying, I don't need Elsa lording this over me, and she will." Banks backed me up. 

Charlie shot us both a glare, "this is ridiculous."

"Embrace it." Viola replied biting back a laugh, "I'm sure you'll look great in a tutu." 

That did not help his mood. 

There was a lot of slowly raising your leg as high as possible while standing on one foot or stretching with one leg on the bar. And then of course onto the slightly more humiliating pirouettes and a lot of french named moves that I had never heard of before. 

When we were done JJ was grinning from ear to ear, "oh you are too easy, you just made my day Mendoza." 

I glared at her, "I'm glad." 

The rest of the work out was fine, not in terms of the fact that I wasn't exausthed but more along the lines of it wasn't entirely humiliating. "Will we be seeing you again tomorrow?" Ida asked as we all walked out of the gym.

Charlie nodded before anynoen could answer, "of course, in fact you'll be seeing the whole team," he turned to us as we shot him confused looks, "if Bombay won't do it then I will, it's ime to get the ducks or team USA or whoever into shape."