Profanity

I figured that I should warn you up front, because it’s going to start immediately. This week was fucking brutal.

I have been insanely busy this week, so this will be a long post; it’s a three-in-one, because I’m covering three different workouts in one post.

I missed Monday because I had an appointment with the doc that afternoon, so I had to get my early morning hours in at work; but I attended class on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I’m considering finding a doctor who will put me into a chemically induced coma for a while so I can recover.

Tuesday is always running day, weather permitting. Weather was permitting this week, and the cicadas are finally gone, and my calves had mostly recovered from the knots I had in them the week before, so I had no excuse to skip. I dragged my lazy ass out of my cozy bed and did my morning get-out-the-door ritual.

We started with lunges up and down the parking lot to warm up. That wasn’t so bad; a nice burn in the thighs feels good before a run. Then we did a gentle shuffle-run in single file down to the road where we would begin the drill. The drill was something called "Last Man Up.” It is otherwise known as “punishment.” Runners jog in a single file line, and the person in the back sprints up to the front and continues the jog; lather, rinse, repeat. The first couple of sprints to the front weren’t so bad, then some of my sprints wound up being on a slight incline, then I started wishing for death. I honestly did not think I was going to be able to finish the class. We did the LMU drill for thirty minutes, and then did some stair running. We finished with repeats up and down Bernard Hill before jogging to cadence back to home base. My calves were knotted up again. Awesome.

Wednesday was no better. On Wednesday we did six stations, and each one sucked. The first one was bear crawl/crab walk up and down the mats in the studio. Second was suicides and squats out in the parking lot. Third was up and down the stairs. Fourth was abs (that one wasn’t so bad). Fifth was uneven push-ups with the medicine ball. And finally, sixth was resistance-band jumping jacks. We did the entire circuit twice. I thought I was going to die.

But if a workout this week was going to kill me, it would have been Thursday’s.
On Thursday, we did partner work, and one partner would run around the (hilly) block while the other partner did some sort of calisthenic exercise in the studio, switching when the running partner returned. The kicker was that at all times, one partner had to be carrying the "baby" (a medicine ball). It was up to the teams to decide which partner would have the baby. There were a couple of rounds where it made the most sense for the runner to have the baby, and running with a med ball is crazy tough. I very nearly gave up before the end of class. I made it through, though. I sure was happy to have Friday off!