CPUnk I write right. Right? Aye.

Stoned out of my mind (at the gym)

Ok — so it all started when I decided (unin­ten­tion­ally) not to eat all the calo­ries I should yes­ter­day. I ended up about 1000 calo­ries short, and went to bed — so what, right?

Well, I woke up this morn­ing, a lit­tle tired — but oth­er­wise feel­ing fine. I headed to the ferry — all was well. Then I walked from the ferry to the office, like I always do (about a mile) and hit the wall — hard. I just stopped hav­ing energy — at all. I was a bas­ket case.

Hillary (woot) was con­cerned and wanted me to eat some­thing nutri­tious like a Snicker’s fake-o power­bar … I wasn’t inclined to do that — and kept feel­ing a lit­tle weak. Jeff (woot) offered up the con­cept of a Clif bar — I read the ingre­di­ents in that — real­ized it was just about as bad as a Snicker’s bar — and waved off there too. Slowly, I went into a tailspin.

Hillary and I walked to the mall to get a salad — and it was like car­ry­ing a bag of meat across the uni­verse — I was tired. We got to the mall and all I kept think­ing (even though Hilly offered numer­ous times to go for me) was — why did I travel all this way, just to have to travel back before I eat?

We even­tu­ally got back to the office — a jour­ney of a thou­sand foot­steps — and I started eat­ing my salad — but I only ate half, because it seemed pretty big and sloppy. That helped some — but I was still pretty hurting.

I decided I wanted to go home — maybe even con­sider work­ing out — yes — that’s insane … but well … I’d lost my mind already — so I was con­sid­er­ing it.

Mean­while, ear­lier this morn­ing, I’d real­ized that on my reg­u­lar sched­ule of work­outs — I had to work­out today or end up throw­ing my entire sched­ule off in that way that hap­pens when you miss a crit­i­cal day — the week gets off-schedule — then the next week– and so on .. and every­thing sucks. I was wor­ried about all of it because tomor­row is my first sched­uled train­ing ses­sion with Jose Lugo, my trainer. In the AM I called him and asked if I should skip today (hope hope) and then do the work­out with him tomor­row — but he didn’t call back.

Ok, fast for­ward, we’re back in the office — I’m all dopey and weak — and I’m headed to the ferry early (on foot, a mile) because I want to head home — and con­sider work­ing out — but prob­a­bly just get home and col­lapse. Then Jose calls. He says that I should work­out fine today — no prob­lem — tomor­row is intended to be an “off” day any­way — more brain than pain … so I can just do my reg­u­lar work­out. This is lit­er­ally 5 min­utes before I’m about to leave. Woot?

So — I walk to the ferry — chat­ting up a storm with my bro­ker about other things — and real­ize that (yay?) I can do my work­out. But in the process of chat­ting with the bro­ker, I almost miss the ferry — so I have to run to catch it at the last minute (minor car­dio, I guess — light-headed vec­tor increases).

I had intended to get a Sub­way sand­wich, but had no time — so I floated onto the ferry and col­lapsed in a chair… com­mit­ted to ride this puppy to the bit­ter end and actu­ally go to the gym.

For those who do not do such crazy things — what remains of this blog is a play-by-play on what it’s like to walk into a gym com­pletely exhausted and then do a full workout.

Kathy picked me up at the ferry — had a gym bag with clothes — and drove me to the gym (I didn’t have the energy to ride the bike she’d brought — so I gave in a lit­tle and cut that from the reg­i­men). She also had a pro­tein shake and my cre­a­tine shake ready for me, which I downed with vigor, hop­ing it would boost me up (it didn’t).

I arrived and looked at gym desk dude cross-eyed and explained that I don’t have my check in card — he checks me in man­u­ally — I get a towel, head to lock­ers. Stare at all the lock­ers, remem­ber that num­bers go up — find my num­ber — open locker — fig­ure out how to stuff twice as much stuff into the locker, change clothes, stand there in dis­be­lief (brief jok­ing chat with the guy next to me about arriv­ing exhausted — because I’m so cool — inside, I’ve got that feel­ing you get right before get­ting on a roller­coaster in a rural car­ni­val — the thought is “is this going to kill me acci­den­tally?”). Ok — I’m ready to go.

Head­phones in — hey — what’s that? Oh, hello split­ting headache, so nice of you to join us. What’s that? You want to be a part of this entire expe­ri­ence? That’s just great — here, why don’t you make your­self com­fort­able over my left eye — that’s nice — yeah, stretch your legs — try to reach the entire way back to the base of my ear and skull — sure … you’re wel­come — no prob­lem. Let’s go lift weights.

As I enter the room (waved at “bully twin” who smiled in a friendly way and said “back for more?” — to which I responded some­thing like “hell yeah” — luck­ily he was leav­ing), I check the iPhone exer­cise app … I believe it’s called iHateYou.app … and it tells me that we’re gonna start with a leg exer­cise but don’t worry, it’s got some back in it too. Joy. The two places I sting the most are legs and back. Yes — I’ve lost my mind at this point… I could wave off — but then I’d just be a quit­ter — and some sick twist in my head knows that this is going to be a jour­ney of a thou­sand cuts — so let’s party.

Look­ing around, I real­ize I’m alone in the room with bully 2.0. This guy is everybody’s bully — he’s shaved his head, so his curved dome can match his shoul­ders and arms (which have the same cir­cum­fer­ence as his shiny head), and he’s just grab­bing fist­fuls of enriched star mate­r­ial and lift­ing them over his head for sport. Mean­while, my work­out is basi­cally a girly lunge hold­ing a dumb­bell and twist­ing — and since I’m using ALL my pain mus­cles at once — I’m mak­ing cool sounds while I gri­mace hys­ter­i­cally, pri­mar­ily because our good friend headache has decided to really set­tle in. So — that’s the pic­ture: bully sling­ing plan­ets — Mal­colm cring­ing in pain doing the Macarena hold­ing a paperweight.

I started out light — easy weight — and then increased — partly for psy­chol­ogy — partly because the exer­cise was too easy — and well … my legs stopped hurt­ing so much — so there’s that. Les­son num­ber one — if you’re sore and work through it, you end up with less pain for a while … good to know. Unfor­tu­nately, there’s just no way to really strut around and say to your­self “good Macarena, man — way to lunge dude” — so I remain silent in my headachy pain.

So, I fin­ish that swirly lit­tle move, can’t even begin to pre­tend I feel buff — when bully 2.0 Jr. comes in and starts work­ing out in the back — mind you, these are all nice peo­ple — but my brain­stem cat­e­go­rizes them ALL as bul­lies… the big­ger the mus­cles — the meaner the bully… even if they’re nice peo­ple in real life (mind you, I’m build­ing up mus­cle myself, so there’s some sort of denoue­ment com­ing in the future where I come to grips with the “bully within” — but that’s for another blog entry).

So, I kid you not — I’m there doing some other work­out, can’t remem­ber which — using a weight that’s rel­a­tively cool … and these two (bully 2.0 and bully 2.0 Jr.) start work­ing out TOGETHER. They’re both doing con­cen­trated french curls for their biceps using a weight that I believe I might even be able to han­dle on a good day (for a few reps) … but then they’re pass­ing the bar back and forth to each other like it’s a bong or some­thing. I’m just dumb­founded … it’s like “pump pump pump — here you go, dude — you take a hit … cool, pump pump pump — back to you, dude” … they were smil­ing like it was a lit­tle silly (I think it was just that they were both using the same bar, at the same weight so why not?) … it was out of hand … and I’m there with what­ever weight, pranc­ing around with a split­ting headache feel­ing like a freak… life has become sur­real… but wait, there’s more!

THEN — a good friend of mine from church appears out of nowhere — never seen him at the gym before — he comes up and says hello .. older guy named Tom — nice guy. We chat for a sec­ond — he makes a point of remind­ing me that even though I’m doing this for me — I’m ONLY doing it for Kathy if any­body else — thanks, dude — yeah, so I have a headache, I’m sur­rounded by bul­lies — and now I’m a moral fail­ure too?

Onward … push through it all … have you noticed how these things are really much more about psy­chol­ogy than any­thing else? I think that’s a big part of it — your body gen­er­ally doesn’t care as long as you don’t REALLY hurt your­self (which you learn to avoid after about a week, or maybe two) — and then the rest is all this noise that hap­pens in your brain while you work out — and I believe it’s really all about over­com­ing your monsters.

So now, in my work­out it’s some­thing like this:

pump — sear­ing headache, pump — sear­ing headache, pump sear­ing headache … repeat. The pain was vir­tu­ally unbear­able… but frankly, I’m into self-discipline — so I just keep motor­ing through … because I’m dig­ging being tough, even though I look like a nancy-boy while I’m suf­fer­ing all this.

In the psy­chol­ogy depart­ment, my brain starts sug­gest­ing that maybe it’s not a good idea to work­out with a headache, and didn’t I once hear some peo­ple talk­ing about that and how it rep­re­sents a stroke or some­thing? (no, not really) I tell my brain to shut up and allow myself to hold my head in the pierc­ing agony between reps.

I go to drink some water — feel whooped and weak — but keep push­ing through. I get to the preacher’s curls (a work­out I like) and Tom comes over to give me a back­rub — which was nice — I did pretty heavy weights on the preacher’s curl (ironic?) … felt the pain — and kept going … now my body is catch­ing up to my pain — and maybe in between I’m feel­ing bet­ter. The headache only fires when I lift — so when I stop — no pain … just … a lit­tle buzz?

I put my head between my legs and there’s a lit­tle blood flow to my brain, which sort of helps. Keep going.

Finally — I’m almost to the end of my work­out — Tom has gone home — the bul­lies are all drifted away, and my head only hits me at a four out of ten at this point. So I get down to busi­ness on a bal­ance exer­cise, on my lower back — the king of all pain centers.

Well — I’ve come this far — so I motor through — and then I start feel­ing my BODY go endor­phin CRAZY, feel­ing my headache just give up .. and almost feel­ing a pass­able ver­sion of decent — but still whooped, dizzy, and a lit­tle whacked generally.

Then I hit my last rep of my last exer­cise, hit it strong — and my body kind of took the cue and just flooded me with endor­phins… I mean flooded. I stood up and my legs were all “sailor drunk”, my head was all calm, and I must have had this goofy smile on my face … because it was a big wave.

I headed to the steam room, almost passed out in there — and just let it all wash over me — it was bliss, absolutely bliss.

By the time I’m in the shower, rins­ing off — I kid you not — I was just gone … I’ve had “runner’s high” before — the kind where you’re feel­ing a lit­tle giddy … but this was insane … it was like there was noth­ing left but me, the cen­ter of my skull, and joy. It was like main­lin­ing some sort of hor­mone that was just never gonna stop … and I had all the time in the world to enjoy it … no issues, no prob­lems — and the end of the day before me. I felt (and still do) like a hero or some­thing … I’d crushed through ALL the pain .. and my body was just giv­ing me all the love it could … and I’m happy for it.

I was still pretty stoned by the time I got to the desk to check out.

That’s when I noticed that they sell Clif bars behind the desk (shout-out to Jeff) … but these are the “Builder” ver­sion — which are high pro­tein, lower carb — and the right blend of mate­ri­als to give you that low glycemic jolt … with­out know­ing what was hap­pen­ing, my brain­stem had a pri­vate con­ver­sa­tion with my hands and mouth, and bought one for me and shoved it into my face while some mas­sage chick behind the desk tried to con­vince me to buy a pack­age of mas­sages at a dis­count (I didn’t).

The Clif bar was like a lit­tle army of anti-headache marines — they raced in, kick­ing in doors, and cap­tured that bas­tard in about 5 min­utes, and took him away in shack­les — the headache was mainly gone because of the high, but it was really only masked. Sadly, the byprod­uct of the Clif bar was also that they high decreased some­what — so every lin­ing has a sil­ver cloud I guess.

I’d called Kathy to come and get me (no bicy­cle for me, Jack) — and some­where in my head, my sys­tem was inform­ing me, in very clear lan­guage, that I should have pasta. Before I could tell her, she’d made pasta (because she’s awe­some) and it was wait­ing for me when I got home. I checked my calo­rie counter and I was 2500 calo­ries short for the day (because of the work­out — not because I’m crazy) … so I got to eat two bowls of pasta — and mmmm.… it was much goodness.

So here I am — on sched­ule with my work­outs, on the far side of the pain, feel­ing the win, lov­ing the high (still a lit­tle buzzed, frankly) feel­ing no pain, with about 1700 calo­ries to play with … that’s a good, good thing.

So the moral, for all of us nor­mal civil­ians is — yes, go to the gym when you’re beat … you’ll suf­fer … you may even get nasty bits like headaches — but at the end of it — you’ll real­ize why your body does this — and you’ll love life. I, for one am going to sleep very well … and am look­ing for­ward to my train­ing tomor­row with Jose. Kathy’s get­ting me another bowl of pasta — life is gooood.