The Post-Apocalyptic Workout

Day 24: John Edwards is the New Chuck Norris.

I headed to the gym today for a lower-body workout as well as Week Four Session Two of the Couch-to-5K Running Plan.  Now if my previous pictures didn't clue you in, I'm not much for dressing up to head out to the gym.  Sure, I make sure that my clothes are clean and my teeth are brushed (most of the time), but a coordinating outfit and makeup don't even fit into my game plan.  I even leave my wedding and engagement rings at home as weightlifting can wear down the bands.  The only two truly important pieces of gear are a sports bra and a decent pair of running shoes.

But trust me when I say that it's not like I'm in danger of being picked up by anyone anytime soon.  I've mastered the art of invisibility: getting in, getting my workout, going home.  I don't encourage people to talk to me, to look at me, to notice me in any way. 

I honed this ability while I was 200+ pounds and trying to make my way around the chrome-n-tone I joined in an effort to lose weight.  While I was comfortable in the weight room (thanks to being brought up around large, football-playing brothers, the weight room didn't intimidate me) but the second I walked into the sea of machines, I wilted.  I'd walk past the row of cardio bunnies, all who gave me the Eye of Judgment as I found an empty treadmill and climbed on, trying to pretend they weren't all watching while I fumbled with the buttons.

Years later, I lost nearly sixty pounds (and kept forty of it off) and I'm as comfortable in a gym as I am in front of my computer.  While I'm still bigger than most of the women who workout there (this is Los Angeles, after all), most of the looks come as I load plates onto the leg press or haul ass on the treadmill.  But the way overweight people are generally treated at the gym is one of my biggest pet peeves about gym culture.

As I've written before, I don't wear an iPod or listen to music while I run.  I prefer to figure out how to either tune out the world around me, or become hyper-aware of everything.  I've been reading Brooks' The Zombie Survival Guide and he writes about how zombies rely on their other senses, and I've been working on this very thing.  I hear moronically well (I also have an amazing sense of smell), so when I can I try not to rely on my eyes but my ears to tell me what's going on. (Note: do not attempt this while driving.) 

Today found me at the gym in my bright pink pants, grey wifebeater and the World's Oldest Black Sweatshirt, hastily assembled from the pile of clean clothes that I have yet to put away. As I started to jog, I picked up on the conversation of a couple in their 30s a few treadmills down who were talking with a trainer who was in-between sets.

Guy: So I'm a Giants fan.
Girl: Because we're from New York.
Trainer: Not the Jets?
Girls: Um, no.  We're from New York! Born and raised. Duh!

I cough, suppressing a laugh.  The girl turns and looks at me and says something to her boyfriend.

Trainer: So where you watching the game?  At home?
Guy: I'm going to [garbled.]
Trainer: [to the girl] You're not going?
Girl: You couldn't pay me ten thousand dollars to go.  People in sports bars are morons!

The boyfriend gets off the treadmill and heads into another room.  The trainer takes the treadmill next to the girl.  I start to run.

Trainer: So you don't like sports?
Girl: No, I'm really into politics and current events.  Like, did you know Hillary Clinton was 60?
Trainer: Are you voting for her?
Girl: No way, she's not a Democrat.
Trainer: I thought she was.
Girl: Democrat means everyone has a voice.  She's always cutting people off.
Trainer: Oh.

I start to run faster, imagining that there's only two spots in the Bunker.  I've got to outrun her.

Girl: I'm voting for Edwards.
Trainer: I always thought he was kinda Socialist.
Girl: He is not a Socialist!  He just wants to help every person with government money.  That's why we have government, to help people.
Trainer: Isn't that---
Girl: Anyway, he's the only honest one, he's not in it for the money.

I push my speed even more.

Trainer: Well,  technically politicians don't make--
Girl: And he's done things like in a court case he took away a medical license of a doctor who deprived a baby of oxygen and gave it Cerebral Palsy.
Trainer: Huh?
Girl: In fact, John Edwards proved that  Cerebral Palsy is caused by doctors who deliver babies wrong*.
Trainer: Well, no, the jury found the doctor at fault and legally responsible.  That doesn't mean anything in terms of science.
Girl: No, you're wrong.  Listen, it's complicated, you wouldn't understand.

I finish the last two minutes in a full-out sprint.

Cooling down, I wipe down my machine and find a place to stretch.  As I walk out of the room, I hear the girl say to her boyfriend:

You'd think she'd put a little effort into her appearance.

I turn and catch her looking directly at me.  She blushes. I smile.

I thought I could explain where my effort was directed, but then I thought it was complicated and she wouldn't understand.  Besides, I have to outrun her to the Bunker.

*Doesn't this totally sound like a Chuck Norris Fact?

Day 22: Checkin' In.

I woke up to the sound of rain and wondered how I'd make it to the gym.  After all, I would have to:

1. Get to the car. (Nearly twenty feet away!  OUTSIDE! Where there was rain!)
2. Drive.  (Through the rain!)
3. Find a parking space. (In the rain!)
4. Walk to the gym. (Possibly up to two blocks!  In the...well, you know.)

Because I am a Post-Apocalyptic Warrior not entirely a wuss too mortified not to go because I'm playing in front of a live studio audience, I hopped to it.  Upper body workout +  week four of the Couch-to-5K Run = one tired slackmistress.

But not too tired for a post-gym dispatch:

 

Day 19: Hunt the Wumpus

The other night Will and I sat down to watch Life After People, which he had thoughtfully Tivo'd for me.  As we watched as nature slowly destroyed what man had built, we kept remarking that it didn't seem all that horrible. Save for the fate of domesticated animals, a world without people was pretty damn decent.

But it was the footage of the dog locked in the house, the dogs scavenging the streets that got me.  Daisy wouldn't make it, I whispered to him under my breath. 

He glared at me.  She'll be fine, he insisted, shaking his head no but pointing at Daisy as if she could understand that we were discussing her impending fate.

The fate we were really discussing was my own.  A soft spot for animals will be my downfall, as it truly is  the creamy caramel center that lies beneath my hard candy shell.  I am a sucker for animals.  I'm no Timothy Treadwell, mind you, and if someone was being attacked by an animal, I'd grab the nearest shotgun. (Or shovel, since I neither own nor know how to operate a shotgun.)   

I understand the idea of the food chain, and I do eat meat.  Of course, as my liberal middle class guilt dictates, I buy organic cruelty-free meat that's put to death by virgins singing lullabies.  I know this makes me an annoying hypocrite, but if I had to kill and clean my food? I'd be a vegetarian. 

In a Post-Apocalyptic World, I don't think I can hunt.

It's not the act of killing that scares me.  It's the idea that animals seem innocent.  Hapless.  Minding their own business.  If I knew that Mr. Deer was a jerk who cut people off on the freeway on the way home from his job at the puppy-kicking factory, I'd be picking venison out of my teeth as I type this.

Of course, if you follow this logic down to the bitter end, you could come to the conclusion that Rev. Phelps will be the main course at my first Post-Apocalyptic Dinner Party.   

I could probably live with that.

Fish are exempt from this ruling.  Sure, Finding Nemo made me cry...and then crave fresh raw yellowtail.  Maybe because I saw my grandfather - the same grandfather who escaped from Russia during World War Two with his wife and his mother and his child and his dog (so the soft spot for animals is hereditary) - catching, killing, and gutting fish while I grew up.  He'd slice then in half lengthwise and put it in the smoker, head on and all.

In junior high when the other girls had square slices of greasy pizza or PB&J with mini cartons of milk, I'd pull out that coppery half-a -fish-carcass with the glassy, dead eye and tear out chunks of the smoky meat while most of them screamed in disgust.  I didn't care. It was good.

Survivorman caught a turtle in his Georgia Swampland episode last night.  He cleaned it off-camera, but as he roasted it over his small campfire he said that he didn't like killing things, and it wasn't something he practiced in his everyday life.  But sometimes it comes down to survival, and in those cases, you don't have much of a choice.  So maybe I'm not as pathetic as I think I am.   

Either way, I hope I never have to find out.

Day 18: Does This Apocalypse Make My Ass Look Fat?

I did not go spinning tonight, as dictated in by my Post-Apocalyptic Calendar.  (Which, incidentally, I'm growing to hate.  The calendar, not the training.  I feel like I spend more time clicking through to find out what I'm supposed to be doing thisveryminute rather than getting anything done.  Although it's probably more a result of the fact that I hate being told when I have to do something.  But I digress.)

I skipped spinning for two reasons: one, it's rainy and cold.  While I started out this whole experiment running in the rain, the idea of hauling my creaky, PMSy, achy ass out into the cold and dark was a step too far.  Yes, I am weak.

But speaking of my ass, reason number two is that I chafed it spinning last Saturday.  I have been spinning off and on for the past three years, and while I know about padded pants and padded seats, my ass has always felt like it's had adequate padding.  Clearly, I was wrong.  Or it just may be that instead of flailing around like a maniac out of the saddle, I'm really concentrating on keeping perfect form (straight back, no hunched over or bouncing around) so I'm spending more time in the saddle. 

Either way, with the marks on my buttcheeks, my ass looks something like this:

\uu/

Which now that I think of it, looks a little bit like this:

\m/

My ass is totally metal.

So instead of on a bike, my ass is planted firmly on the couch, but it's still working.  My First Aid and CPR (Adult/Child/Infant) class has been booked for February 9th ($65 through the Red Cross), books have been ordered and I'm watching Survivorman.  I've learned how to make a prison match.  Not to be confused with a Cage Match, a prison match a fire from an empty lighter, a piece of tissue and some sock lint.  Kids, I'm totally trying this one at home.

Day 17: Scorecard/Survival

Please excuse the goofy grin.  Looking fabulous and sexy sans makeup and in one's workout clothes is thankfully not crucial for post-apocalyptic survival, although those Resident Evil movies claim otherwise.

...

On a serious note: 

While not completely relevant to this blog, actor Heath Ledger died of a reported drug overdose today, although it hasn't been discovered if it was accidental or intentional as of this writing.   I wrote more on the subject at the slack daily, but there is a point that I make there that is relevant here, and that is this: survival isn't just something you need for the apocalypse.   You might need it to get through your day.  Fighting for your emotional survival is just as important as fighting for you physical survival.  It may make us frail, but it also makes us human. 

While I may crack wise, there are days where I have to fucking fight for it.  But I do.  And I'll continue to.

I hope that you do, too.

Day 15: Anyone Out There?

Today marks the beginning of week three.

It also marks the end of the this-isn't-so-bad part of the running portion of the challenge. 

Yes, I am admitting IN A PUBLIC FORUM that while I can walk from here to Cincinnati (okay, I don't know that I can) running for three minutes in a row is exhausting.  I know that it doesn't help that I've got a pair of 34DDDs strapped to my chest (extra fat stores to stave off post-apocalyptic starvation?  Or am I looking at post-apocalyptic table dancing in my future?) and two bras (one normal, one bionic) are required to keep the girls from looking like a couple of puppies playing on a waterbed. 

The soreness from lifting is just starting to go away but I'm still exhausted as I haven't adjusted to my punishing schedule (as my lack of daily updates may indicate.)   The scale tells me that I've shaved off a couple of pounds and my endurance has definitely improved. 

But if you asked me to run for my life, I might just ask you for a glass of wine and a cigarette to toast my impending demise. 

How're you?

Day 12: The Day After.

I finally felt well enough to venture from my cocoon of blankets and TheraFlu to brave the wilds of the gym and pick up on Week 2 of the Couch-to-5K as well as lift.  Shockingly, I was given my space to work out and return home.  I guess my reputation precedes me.   

Today's workout - and previous gym jaunts - take me just under an hour.  One hour.  I know that we have children and husbands and wives and pets and plants and scarves to knit and episodes of Law & Order to watch, but one hour isn't a huge time commitment.  Trust me, when you're trying to haul ass from those 28-Days-Later zombies, you'll be thanking me.  (Or screaming at me to wait up.  Sorry, Zombie Chow.)

A reader (whose email I will get to, I'm not ignoring you, je promis) asked me what I listen to when I work out.  The answer to that is...nothing.  While it would certainly be more enjoyable to plug in and tune out,  I actually prefer to concentrate on what I'm doing.  The downside of that is that sometimes you're subjected to the idiocy of the chick on the treadmill next to you yapping into her cell phone or the 80's metal band turned ALL THE WAY UP so the bald guys in their Zubaz can headbang and reminisce about when they had hair. 

But think about it this way: you don't get to decide who survives, post-apocalypse.  Chances are it's not gonna be your BFF.  It's going to be that snotty barista who always asks you pointedly 'are you sure you don't want nonfat milk?' and invites you to his warrior-poet-slam even though you're pretty sure he's even less a poet that a warrior.  Trust me, the ability to tune people out will be vital.

...

And finally, because you asked: the PAW Home Game!  Keep track of your workouts, hook up with people in your area, and be a general nuisance on the Post-Apocalyptic Workout Forum.  Currently, ads are enabled to offset some of the small costs to upkeep this site, but supposedly there's a way to disable them when you register.   Have...fun?

Day 10: PLAGUE!

The question is never if it'll hit. 

The question is always when.

The tickle at the back of my throat started on Friday.  I ignored it.  Got up early to spin on Saturday.  Packed the car and the husband and left the dog in care of the younger brother, dosed myself with one of those decongestants with pseudoephedrine and pointed the car north toward San Francisco for a 24-hour road trips. 

Somewhere in Gorman the drugs kicked in.

Bay Bridge at 5pm.  At the party at 9pm.  Husband and I back to the friend's place at 1am.  Up at 9am, burnching by 11am, back on the road at 1pm.  Plenty of time to get home, change, get to the gym and start week two of the Couch-to-5K.

At some point, the tickle became a raspy couch, and my voice when from its normal lovechild-of-Betty-Boop-and-Kathy-Griffin to Patty and Selma.  I crawled in the door and took to my bed, a shivering, febrile mess.

PLAGUE.

I woke up on Monday, thinking my choices were to

a) rest, and get over it or;
b) pretend I wasn't sick at all.

In a post-apocalyptic society, what would I do? Let's take a Stephen King The Stand moment: Earth's population is decimated by the plague.  Suddenly, I, one of the survivors, get sick. 

They'd probably take me back behind the shed and shoot me.

So I've decided to lay low and remain Patient Zero.

...

I had my first Doggie-First-Aid moment when I realized that Daisy the Wonderdog had what could only be described as a "hitch in her giddyup."  She was slow moving up stairs and jumping on the couch.  She still had an appetite, her poop was firm (ah, poop, the tea leaves of your dog's health), gums had good color, belly was soft and when I palpated her hind legs and back, nothing seemed to be wrong.   I planned on taking her to the vet first thing in the morning.

However, when I lifted her 50.8-pound self off the couch at 1:30am to bring her to bed, she yelped.  Daisy is a dog that doesn't bark, doesn't growl, doesn't complain ever.  Pit bulls are known for being stoic toward pain and I wasn't cool with the idea of her hurting all night, so the husband and I decided the E-Vet was in order.

Nothing looks more post-apocalyptic than an empty city, and Los Angeles at 2am on a Tuesday is no exception.  Daisy and I traveled through the cool, dark streets  and sat in the lobby until a doctor could see us.   At which point my limping, yelping, shivery dog...made a miraculous recovery.

However, I did have a chance to discuss the exam with the Vet and got a few pointers (if you could call "how to give a rectal exam" a "pointer.")  It turns out the Wonderdog most likely has a groin pull. 

No, I'll let you make the jokes.

Blood was taken to make sure she could hack the pain meds (as they're tough on the liver) and $361 and two hours later, we were heading back across and even quieter city to bed.

This morning, the Plague has subsided some but I'm still hiding out just one more day.  I don't want to be shot behind the shed.  Provided I'm somewhat back, workouts to resume tomorrow.

...

A bunch of people have indicated that they'd like to participate in the PAW: Home Game.  I was thinking perhaps we could put together some sort of message board to give all y'all a way to communicate, discuss tactics or problems or team people up if they live close together.  If you've got any suggestions, please email me!

Day 5: No Sarah Connor

The other day before spin class I ran into younger slackbrother j., who had locked his keys in his car.  I used a card in my wallet to jimmy open the car.  That card, of course, being my AAA card.  (But lockpicking is still on the list.)   I had told j. about my PAW idea a few days previous, and imagined he had had a moment to check out the site.

You know what you need? he asked me.

What?

Books, like those SAS Manuals.

You haven't even looked at the site yet.

No, but I have a bunch of ideas, he told me. You should train like the Navy SEALS.

You should just check out the site. I have a training plan, I said in the most patient tone I could muster.

Oh, and get some other elite training.  Like crossbows and hand-to-hand combat and stuff.

You should just check out the site, I told him again.

And you should rockclimb.

Check out the site, I repeated, bordering on annoyed.

Oh, and the apocalypse is gonna be a desert, so you should train for the heat.

I snapped. Oh really, how the f#%@ do you know that? 

Okaaaaay Sarah Connor.

Yeah, laugh it up, future cannibal food.

I'll be fine, he told me.  I have you!

(From here.)

Day 3: Training for the End of the World.

Today, as the calendar* dictates, was a lifting/running day.  I learned on Sunday that the running plan I'm using bases training on distance or time. I decided to use the time component, as all it required was a watch.  Except on Sunday I realized: I don't wear a watch.  I managed to dig out my "Bunnysutra" Swatch watch from a few years back:

Precisely why I'm Zombie Fodder in the next Apocalypse.

The Couch-to-5K plan starts out with ninety seconds of jogging interspersed with sixty seconds of running.  This watch didn't even have a secondhand.  So today, I ran on the treadmill after I lifted at the gym.

As I set up the safety rails in the squat rack before my workout, a Personal Trainer approached me.

Personal Trainer:  Miss?  That's the squat rack.

Me: Uh-huh.

Personal Trainer: Were you wanting to use that?

Me: Yes.

Personal Trainer: For what?

Me: Um, to squat?**

Personal Trainer: Oh, are you training for something?

Me: Yup.

Personal Trainer: What?

Me: The end of the world.

He backed away slowly.

I don't think anyone at the gym will be bothering me again.

*If I don't post for a day, it doesn't mean I didn't train that day.   If I miss a workout, I'll come here and fess up why.  Ideally it won't be due to zombie attack or bird flu, but never count it out.  I do live in Los Angeles, after all.

**If you've never squatted before, please check out Mistress Krista's insanely informative articles on safety, training and form starting here.