Speeding Up/100 Little Prayers

I can't even recall how it got started.

"100 burpees." It became some sort of mantra, if you can call it that, for Whit.

I was out of shape. Well, for me. Last semester things got too busy, period. I couldn't work out like I had for so long. The peak shape of my life, which I'd achieved last summer, was slowly slipping away. I mean, for whatever reason, I've long been a guy who can just stop and run a few miles at any given time. But that's altogether different from the type of stamina I was letting slip away because I was too busy in theories class, and in practicum too.

***

So he needled me to get back on it, starting with 100 burpees. Many weeks. Months probably. I dodged the issue sometimes, made promises to him and to myself. It didn't happen until tonight.

***

My inspiration is the same. My visualization remains the same.

***

The man who taught my practicum class last semester died over the weekend. It was not unexpected, yet still a shock. Five weeks ago I was talking to him, urging him to let me drive him home. He was in bad shape. The last time I saw him he was driving away. I didn't know that would be the last time I'd ever see him.

***

33 degrees in the garage, but that's where I do them, these 100 burpees. MOBB is doing yoga in the living room, and something just seems right about doing them on the mat between the cars, just past the heavy bag.

***

I am TIRED of death as a recurring theme right now. I'm tired of it taking the elderly, tired of it taking the young, the innocent, the unexpecting, the healthy, the sick.

***

Working out with a new guy at the Krav school Saturday. We make chit chat. I tell him I'm the senior student at the school, not that I'm the most skilled by a long shot. He asks my age, and replies, "39... slowing down, eh?"

"No. I'm actually trying to speed up."

***

I'm not laughing, by the way.

***

I've got four ugly songs on the iPod for my workout. They'll do. Rage Against the Machine, Tool, Soundgarden, and the Prodigy. I'll spare you the song titles. They wouldn't make me any friends in a couple cases.

***

And I start.

Each burpee is a prayer, a dedication to what I have now, to every inch of progress I make trying to stave off the inevitable.

20 burpees in, I'm breathing heavily. The cold air hurts my lungs. I take off the hoodie.

Keep going

30 burpees in, and I tell myself I'm almost a third of the way there. It's not comforting.

Each one is a reinforcement, a fist shaken at Him.

Keep away from me, from my loved ones, from everyone I know.

40 burpees in, and I'm just aching to get to 50. I'm slow, I'm ugly, and I'm gasping.

And I make it. At halfway to my goal, I'm crawling on the mat, lungs hurting. I'm on all fours, in a prayer position.

I WILL get through this, I think to myself. He's not here anymore. He can't. I'm still here. Still here.

I stay down too long before getting up. More than a minute.

***

"Slowing down, eh?"

***

I stand up and start breaking the remaining fifty into groups of 10.

At 60 I'm suffering again, back down on all fours.

Get up. Get up.

STAND up..

I do. I hold myself up between the cars.

***

Rage Against the Machine are barking in my ears. "@#$% you, I won't do what you tell me!"

And I won't. I won't roll over. I won't stop at 60. I won't settle.

10 more.

***

Inspiration. I was inspired then. I am inspired now. Do you hear me?

***

10 more. At 80, it seemed possible. I slowly knocked out the rest. Each one had a moment, an inspiration, a foothold against the ebb.

I am not here to waste this. I am here to live. Go.

***

At 100, after taking 20 minutes to do what Whit does in under 8, I was back on the mat, but with just a little more fire in me. I lay there on the mat, feeling the cool against my face.

It reminded me of back in '05 when, frustrated with my middling workouts, I implemented interval training. The first one was so brutal I came home and fell asleep on the living room floor.

***

I move forward, thankful for the blessing that this day and this opportunity to do so are.