Breanne made me cry

Blog

This morning, once again, I was reminded of the stark contrast between "adult fitness" and "ultimate fitness." More importantly, the difference between the small world of sports played passionately and larger world of people just wanting to stay in shape, or lose a few pounds, or something else like that.

I am the slowest, possibly the second slowest, person on my ultimate team. Much of this has to do with (my lack of) fitness and my growing number of annoying injuries, but I can't ignore the lack of dedication (read: obsession) this season after becoming a practice player. Well, that and just plain genetics, even though my college times imply I can run an okay fast time.

In contrast, I am the fastest, possibly the second faster, woman at Velocity for the times I go, which are the morning adult fitness classes. Not that it ever really matters during the warmups, since people should be running as fast as they want, not as fast as they can go. I do prefer, however, to try to keep up with the boys, and I manage for those first five steps, the ones which are so important in ultimate. The last 30 meters? Yeah, their backsides.

The latter inspires significantly more than the former. Though that could be Breanne's infectious attitude towards pushing oneself to see really how well you can do.

This morning's workout was two rounds of:

20m x 2 Overhead walking lunges
30 squats
10 dips

20m x 2 Overhead walking lunges
30 jumping squats
10 dips

20m x 2 Overhead walking lunges
30 split squat jumps
10 dips

Overhead walking lunges are done with a wide grip on a barbell, held over one's head with arms locked. The lunges are supposed to be low, but not so that the front leg goes past 90°. I didn't use the girlie bar for the walking lunges, opting instead for the trainer bar (17kg or about 35 pounds). My upper body wasn't as tired as my lower body as a result.

The squats were normal squats, but done explosively! as fast as possible while keeping form. The hamstrings were to go parallel with the floor.

Jumping squats involved the same as the squats for quickness, but also included a jump at the end.

The split squat jumps were essentially jumping from a lunge position and switching feet, attempting to go as high as possible.

The dips could be regular dips on the dip bar, a jump up to the dip bar with a lower, or a dip from the jump boxes. I opted for the latter, after realizing that I couldn't do one regular dip, and not really wanting to fight over the dip bars for the jumping ones.

I finished the workout, maintaining as much form as I could, just behind Kris. The last sets of squats weren't one set of 30 each, but rather three sets of 10, strung together quickly, because my legs just couldn't handle 30 explosive anythings by that point.

At the end of the last set of dips, I curled into a ball and started crying. I sat that way for a moment, before standing up, and walking over to Kris and burying my face in his shoulder to continue crying. He was standing next to the big fan, where I needed to be, as I couldn't manage to get my body temperature down this morning, despite the 65° room or the removal of various pieces of clothing during the workout. "You're not injured?" was Kris' first reaction, a perfectly reasonable reaction, I'd say.

No, not injured. Just very, very, very happy to be done with that workout.