[This post was typed in an unheated room, by oil lamp, on a Neo2. And I’m a wreck too. My internet router is down so the laptop is pointless. As is, I suppose, blogging. Who blogs without the internet? Who knows when I’ll get this posted?]
I’ve been looking forward to this week for months. I participate in [REDACTED]… let’s call it “a sporting event”. If it makes it more fun, you can fill in the space with something cool: Synchronized shotput?
As part of this, a group of like-minded folks get together annually to “get the lead out”. It’s a yearly blitzkrieg of workouts and it pushes me pretty hard. I either “push the envelope” or “wind up crushed”; depending on my level of machismo at the end of the week. That said, I love it. I look forward to it for months.
I need to occasionally climb a figurative mountain because to NOT do so wears on the soul. [RANT]I don’t give a fuck what some dispshit in Gillette’s marketing division says, there’s plenty of good in the “manly lifestyle”. Dedication, strength, diligence, hard work, the opportunity to excel paired with the opportunity to faceplant; it’s good for ya’! It pisses me off that they turned that into fucktards encouraging bullies. That shit exists in the minds of clueless nincompoops and not in real life. Have they ever met an actual man? I should also mention that our little group has plenty of women so “manly lifestyle” is something of a misnomer. But still, Gillette marketers can kiss my ass.[/RANT]
Lucky for me, the logistics are all handled and I’m really not too important to the event. All I’ve got to do is show up (which is fine by me).
As I drag my increasingly geriatric ass to our tame and safe version of Thunderdome I feel good about it. If I do it a sufficient number of times I feel like a hero. Yes, I mentioned “number of times”. The “event” is just a simple workout. The challenge comes from scheduling several in rapid (from my point of view) succession. Start with a workout at dark thirty on day #1, follow it up with another workout 12 hours later, then repeat every 12 hours for five days. Ten workouts in five days doesn’t sound like much but (at least for me) it’s enough. Twelve hours doesn’t give a lot of recovery time between sessions. It builds. Of course, it’s not a marathon or Marine boot camp but I’m not a 19-year-old recruit either. What I’m saying is for me it’s a challenge and I look forward to it. I’m not blogging about it to brag or to invite abuse from DudeBros who can bench press a Volkswagen; rather, that’s the background for my story about a week that went off the rails.
Experience has taught me that by day #4 I’m usually half zombie and I coast/stumble through day #5. Then sleep a few days afterwards. That seems pretty much the right calibration for me. Plus, the people in my little group are all normal people (meaning we have jobs… quaint idea eh?). If it was more time consuming, most of us wouldn’t be able to fit it around work.
So, it begins:
Day #1 at dark thirty I fired up my truck. It was -12 degrees (Fahrenheit). My diesel truck wasn’t happy and neither was I. I HATE mornings. As far as I’m concerned there’s no need to see the pre-dawn light unless I’m fixing to shoot something edible or I’m stumbling home from last night’s drinking. Sleepy and grumpy, I cursed my stupid ideas but did my thing to the best of my feeble abilities. I rewarded myself with a nice pancake breakfast with Mrs. Curmudgeon. Awesome!
Then it was back to the regular grind of life. This got a little hairy because the weather report indicated a blizzard was on the way. In a rush, I hauled a face cord of firewood to the house just before sunset. Due to bad planning on my part (and doing all the labor myself I might add) my firewood hadn’t been properly stacked in the woodshed. It had gotten lightly covered with snow and then froze solidly in place. I wound up whacking each piece of wood with a handheld sledge to bust it from the ice before throwing it on the trailer. My kid (who didn’t help me stack wood in the fall) kindly helped in this much harder task. I was thankful. Maybe he’ll learn a lesson in planning… but then again, I blew it so I’m hardly a good example. He’ll probably not learn a damn thing. Regardless, we both found it cold and exhausting.
I got it done just in time to hop in the truck and drive to workout #2. Not my best example of time management! What the hell, life is what it is.
The evening workout ran me ragged. Or maybe it was doing the day’s second workout immediately after a couple hours of struggling with iced firewood?
I scooted home and collapsed in bed. In subjective time the alarm clock went off 5 minutes later. UGH MORNINGS! I like a bit more “downtime” between physical challenges… my muscles hadn’t had time to “heal” since the last go rounds. Then again that’s the whole point!
Stay tuned…