A friend at the Muscatine Community Y runs hundreds of miles and never listens to music.
Indoors.
Outdoors.
Year round.
In all kinds of conditions.
No music.
This is a kind of mental toughness I will never possess. Never was this more obvious than it was about halfway through the workout I did Tuesday evening at Warrior Crossfit Muscatine: 45 minutes of barbell complex and step ups — lots of step ups. I made it through seven of the workout’s 10 rounds in the 45 minutes. That means I did 490 of the workout’s 550 step ups. And that equals about a quarter mile — all straight up, 20 inches at a time.
And precisely when I was ready to quit, the gym stereo saved me. Well, actually, AC/DC’s “Shoot to Thrill” saved me. For a brief moment, I even stepped a little faster.
Not only did I step a bit faster, I managed to get through more of that workout than I thought I’d be able to do when the class started. And somewhere in there, I think, is a metaphor about life.
As they say at WCFM: Nothing without effort.
A bit more about Tuesday’s workout: Rachel Reifert managed to do all 10 rounds in 40:44, meaning she was done 4:16 early.
If I didn’t like Rachel and the rest of her family (one of her brothers and her dad are both good friends; that brother and their mom are both regular readers of this blog), I’d hate her for being so good at a workout that was so hard.
Brome Hill 