I don’t remember waking up, or getting there, but when I finally realized where I was, I realized I was standing in the parking lot of Carmel Neighborhood Park. I have no idea how I got there….but there I was. As I stood there wondering what happened and how my car was there, men just kept showing up – 21 in total. We milled around until some guy yells out “One minute”. One minute? Until what? I had no idea, but I was about to find out. He starts into some explanation about not being a professional, something indecipherable that sounded like someone was dead, and then says to follow him on a warm up run. Why? Where was he going? Curiosity got the better of me, so I jogged with the rest of them. We jogged what seemed like half a mile, and then he stopped. Told us to circle up. I was already there, so I did. It was like I’d been transported back to my old high school gym class or something. This man is calling out exercises in cadence: jumping jacks, push-ups, crunches, and some exercises I had never seen, something called wide arm merkins. They seemed like push-ups, just with your hands out wider. This funny looking thing called “Imperial Walkers”, but the whole time these men were just yelling at the guy in the middle of the circle. Hateful, awful things about how he couldn’t count. It was odd, and he laughed along, but it must have made him angry. We just didn’t know it at the time. Then the guy called another exercise he called the Boone LBC. I don’t know who Boone is, but I hate him. My sides ached. Then some “diamond merkin”, just a regular push-up but with your hands together. My arms were pretty sore by this point. Fortunately, he started running again…then stopped. Why? We all huddled together waiting on the explanation. The man called out, “The next exercise is….” And there was a pause, and we all thought, “yes…what? out with it, man! Tell us!” he continued, “…the SIX MINUTE MILE“. What? No freakin’ way! I can’t do that. It seemed like everyone else thought the same. There was confusion and chatter, and I could barely hear him tell us to run to the stop sign and back. Before I could voice my concern, he was gone. Sprinting up the parking lot, back toward the park where I’d found myself earlier. I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I ran as fast as I could. The road we took to get to the park, which seemed so flat, became a giant, long hill. My lungs burned, grasping for air. I ran and ran, then I turned around and ran some more. Two guys passed me. I wanted to push myself, to keep up with them…but I couldn’t. My legs were dead. They beat me back to the start. I am 3rd. It felt good, though. There was no rest for weary legs, though. At this moment, I began to hate this man. He told us to sit against the wall, something he called “The People’s Chair”, while we waited for everyone else. We sat what seemed like 2 minutes. My legs burned. He stood up – Ah, finally I though – a respite. Then he yelled at us “5 burpees on your own”. I followed the guy beside me and was barely finished when he called out “Balls to the Wall”. I was instantly confused. Everyone followed his instruction, walking on their hands with their feet up on the wall. We held it until he yelled “5 derkins – in cadence”. Blood rushed to my head, my arms already shaking as I tried to keep up. Gosh, that was awful. I couldn’t help but wonder “Out of all the parks in all the neighborhoods“, I got dumped into this one. I was beginning to really hate that man. With a quiet “follow me”, he jogged off. At this point, I wanted to stay, to do anything but follow him, but my car was the direction he was going….so I didn’t have much choice. I may have followed him with my feet, but I didn’t like it. He stopped at the end of the parking lot to explain that we would be running something called 7s on the hill with backwards runs, jump lunges at the top, and squats at the bottom. Like hell, I thought. I’m done with this. Then I saw the hill. It didn’t look that hard. We were close to the cars, and no one else quit, so I followed the group. Less than halfway through, I hated myself for not quitting, but not nearly as much as I hated this man. My quads burned on the backward runs up the “little” hill, and then jump lunges? I heard others speak of it in hushed tones, “Quadzilla” they whispered, as if saying the name could summon some monster. It was like this cruel man was laughing at us. My hate continued to grow. We jogged back to the cars. I thought we were done, but this guy directed us into the tennis courts. Tennis? Really? It was still dark outside, though not nearly as dark as his intentions. He told us to partner up, then directed us to partner wheelbarrow the width of both courts with 5 decline merkins (which I quickly learned really means push-up) at each white line. I quickly surveyed the courts and counted 9 lines. Some guy named Agony called out to me, and off I went, walking on my hands while he held my feet. The declines grew tougher. Just walking on my hands became tough as my shoulders burned. Hate continued to grow inside me for this nefarious man. We jogged back, and then for the first time all morning, I had what felt like a break. He told us to lay on our stomachs. To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never slept on a tennis court before, but I didn’t want to move. I wanted to curl up right there on that wet tennis court and sleep like I’d never slept before. Just as I got comfortable, the last guys finished, and he yelled at us again “Sprint to the end and back”. GO! Whether it was fright or not, I don’t know, but I ran. I ran as fast as I could go, so fast in fact that I almost slipped on the wet tennis court. When I finished, my lungs were burning again. “On your belly” I heard. Oh no – not again. But we did – I did. And when we were done with that, he told us to find our partner. Dread seized me. My shoulders couldn’t do that again. But what he had planned was worse. “Partner carry with 5 squats at each line!” It was at this point that I wanted to tackle him and beat him to death, but Agony jumped on my back. As I walked and squatted with a grown man on my back, my legs teetering beneath me, I planned my revenge. I just had to get him alone near the car. Agony awkwardly fell off as I teetered near the finish. With my plan in place, I jogged back, waiting for the moment of sweet, sweet revenge against this sadistic man. We switched, allowing our partners to experience the pain of partner squats. I watched perched on Agony’s back as man after man stopped to lunge walk. At this point, I thought a full mutiny was possible. Collectively, we could easily overpower him and dispose of the body in the park. Before the group could come to agreement, he said we had 2 more minutes for Mary. She had not made an appearance, and although I was exhausted, bordering on hallucinating, I hadn’t noticed any females in the group. Much to my surprise, he called for “Freddy Mercury”, which resembled riding a bicycle from your back. He called cadence while we all followed suit. Finally, he called for 10 double burpees (two push-ups, two jumps) on your own. I burned with an infernal rage. Mercifully, time was up. Unbeknownst to him, his time was nearly up. I walked to my car to grab a pen and paper, setting up my ruse to get him alone, and as I reached across the seat of the car to get the paper, I glanced in the rearview mirror. I jumped back and fell into the seat. How could this be? As I looked into the mirror, I saw that the man was me.
Moleskine:
Ok, so most everything is in that long, noir-esque paragraph. If you click the links, hopefully it will make more sense (click “out of all the neighborhoods…” link to understand why I wrote it this way, even though I wasn’t there – loved that back blast from Slaughter). I tried to bring in some of my most memorable, most hated moments from the now defunct “HeHateMe” workout at Latta.
Intel was a beast out there. I think he did the mile in about 5:40. Agony right there with him, who then started cheering everyone else to finish strong. I was about 5-10 seconds behind them. The entire mile all I kept thinking was “if you can’t do it, don’t Q-it”. Fortunately I made it. I think everyone made it back in under 8 minutes, so strong work from all.
Intel then went on to kill Quadzilla. Film Fest bested Agony in the partner wheel barrow race back. And Abba, who I’m pretty sure hasn’t posted in months, looked like he hadn’t missed a beat. Strong work, brothers!
Someone told me I “swung for the fences” in my backblast for The Rock. Hopefully it delivered. We ran out of time on the tennis courts, so sprints instead of the Nash Circuit. Maybe next time. Thanks to Skywalker for the Q and to everyone for pushing me out there! No scripture verse, but I was given a copy of this poem when I graduated college. It kind of fits here:
The Guy in the Glass
