apparently, non-fit people don’t flock to fitness challenges.

There were some crazy fit people there. That was Catherine’s observation about the crowd at the fitness challenge.

I fit in with just the crazy people.

I’m sore already and it is what, 8 hours later. 2 days from now, when it’s really going to hit, we’re going to be in trouble. Sal will be asking me to take him up a hill to go sledding and I’m going to have to distract him.

Snowball to the head!

Anyway, last night my pre-fitness-challenge diet went out the window. I was pretty good all day, with just a salad for lunch (the little one Ian) and 2 bananas…then happy hour came and so did a couple pitchers of guinness…and curry fries…and we had all these Girl Scout cookies.

Felt pretty good this morning though. I miss the nerves going into competitions. Getting dressed for soccer games brought a thrill I don’t get much anymore. Not that this was the same, but it was at least in the right direction.

Was pleasantly surprised when we got there that they changed the rowing machine event to count meters rowed instead of calories burned. Meters rowed is about 10x calories burned, so as far as #s go, if you’re decent at rowing, this would change your score quite a bit.

Kari’s a smart gal. She knew we’d have issues decided where in the rotation of exercises to start, so for our group, she had us pick our starting points off of little wads of paper. Very good planning. So this was my schedule:

• # of reps of pushups on a table (a not high enough table) in a minute
• # of meters rowed on the rowing machine in a minute. This used to be advertised as calories burned, but meters rowed is about 10x as many as the calories burned, so the number sounded better. Also changed the whole balance of the challenge.
• # of reps of a military press – 15 pound bar in a minute
• # of steps up onto a 10 inch platform in a minute
• # of squats with a 6 pound medicine ball tossing it up to a 8 foot spot on the wall. They would not let me just place it on the wall. I had to toss it. That was a bummer.
• 1 minute of rest.
• repeat the 5 events.
• 1 minute of rest.
• repeat the 5 events

Then I took about 45 minutes to regain my composure.

I came close, but did not claim the gift certificate (where and how much didn’t matter, it was an award!) for being the first to puke. But I didn’t have much to throw up. All I ate this morning was Sal’s left over hamburger from last night. Non-refrigerated. It gave me strength.

Shawn got 1053 and I got 912. He was supposed to get 150% of my score, you know, cause he’s been taking a weight training class and playing tennis all the time, while I’ve been rehabbing my knee…and unable to really do any cardio for the last 10 months. Well, I guess I could ride my bike, but uh…anyway…115%.

If we reduce the meters rowed to 1/10th, to simulate the calories instead of meters, it gets closer. Shawn 447 and 327 for me. 136%.

Shawn was gracious enough to by my whole family lunch.

Chuck wanted a handicap for being over 40. We support no forms of ageism. I wanted a handicap for surgery. Then Chuck said he could be the average of my score and Shawn’s score. Which was a subtle way of saying – I can beat Cris and then some. So I took that bet – for a Neto’s sandwich. Beat Chuck straight up. I don’t know his exact score. I wasn’t very coherent when we were evaluating the results. And I didn’t want to ask him, to make it seem like I was rubbing it in. But I beat him straight up.

Some folk didn’t like the meters rowed values, so they calculated the roto scores for our performances – I guess we’re fantasy sports people to the core. I came in 3rd. I think I was 2nd in points, but cause of that rowing…3rd in roto. They also refused to add my other roto category for money raised.

Thanks all, who donated. I made my internal goal of a dollar a pound.

So Ian, you won a lunch. I’ll take you to Hobbee’s next time you’re in town. They had a Hobbee’s cake there and I didn’t have any before the challenge (huge feat of willpower). And I couldn’t see it after the challenge (physical side effects). I think LL would approve of Hobbee’s too.

And next year, I’ll break a thousand.