5/6/20 Flow : I Remember The Feeling

5/6/20 ~0540-0600

It’s crazy cold for a May morning, about 30°, maybe 34°, it’s around that freezing point.

I’ve long made policy to get up and exercise if I can’t sleep a wink.

All nighter → Exercise @ 5am or 6am

Too early for much else, I’m not making the house smell like pan fried steak this early, with it actually too cold to open windows out.

I’ll wait til later in the day. Yesterday I bought a big gulp (32oz or so brisk blueberry iced tea lemonade) thinking I’d sit outside drinking it around 5am. I thought I’d rise early drinking it to the rising sun and sounds of spring.

The all nighter changed the plan : 100 burpees at the bottom of the driveway.

Corona may have the gym closed, but that ain’t stopping me.

I’d exercise on the sidewalk if necessary.

I had done horse stance near to both sides of midnight hour in my bedroom, exercise at present is mostly bedroom/kitchen/driveway in that order.

Though I spend a lot of time seated outside, and just pacing the yard shirtless to get the sun.

100 burpees, in roughly 23:30. Twenty three and a half minutes is a terrible time for 100 burpees.

The inefficiency is phenomenal.
My back covered in sweat, my skull cap (off at either 48 or 53 reps in) not seeming as clean as it had.

I usually do burpees in stomach hit, toe touch, hands up style, but today around half was the “normal” style of flop & jump.

That’s how I got through it.

The first set was 10, most were sets of 5-7, stopped at 88 reps total I powered through the rest with a couple extra reps to finish strong.
I’d lollygagged enough. So over 12, 14, 15, or 16 to finish.

The reps, the pure amount of sweat, hard exercise in a tshirt outside in 30° hit me as I walked back to my timer and tally clicker.

I spit phglem, fighting off what first felt like the need to puke, then coughed twice in a way very close to dry heaving.

The feeling is terrible…and extraordinary, invigorating.

At 14 from football (which I quit) to wrestling (which I also quit) to the daily mile runs in JROTC the next semester (where I decided I’d rather die than not give it my all), that feeling of my insides wanting to come out with every breath was what I felt today.

When have I felt that in the interim?

That was how I operated at 14, over a decade ago, that is honest effort, to which we all need more of the thing.

I remember the feeling.

I feel alive! What stresses are there in the world?

I tell you, whatever momentary physical feeling you get, the mental will be worth it.

I’d prefer to describe cardio not as an antidepressant, but as a euphoria builder!

No synthetic blue high fructose corn syrup big gulp, instead I type and drink water to come down.

You put in honest physical effort and :

•You’re not gonna feel negativity.
•You’re filled with confidence, hope, a sense of well being.

Hocked lugies being simply part and parcel.

In under a half hour you just got plenty full body Cardio Calisthenics ™, since it was an all nighter you both started and ended the day right.

No worries about corona.
Not hungry, or tired, I’m actually filled with contentment and energy.

As I found a place to sit, I couldn’t help but feel the emotion, that how a fight to the death would cardiovascularly demand you power through this feeling, I felt HUMAN knowing, understanding that will to power required in the described situation.

I feel outgoing, and though it’ll probably be a relatively solitary day, it makes sense that I talked to a cute sportily built chick 90 reps or so in one of the last times I was able to do burpees at the gym.

Burpees may be analogous to MDMA.

I’ve actually met addicts who went straight from pills/crack directly cold turkey into the gym.

Yeah, you could say addictive personality, but you can’t simply write off the exercise euphoria.

Redirection.

Mankind is made to be physical!

I’m feeling this good. The chick joggers I joked to in passing yesterday may have been feeling much the same.

Exercise puts you in a good great mood!

(I was actually surprised that they had the comprehension to get my comment and for one to laugh and for one to giggle with the look on their faces in such a brief passing. A fairly stock but honest joke, “I think I can walk faster than that”, they both responded “like omg cute guy is teasing us” – that look.)

Yeah, I clearly feel alive as I write this.

Sausage and grits won’t smell up the house. Shower washes off the sweat.

It’s all good.
Life is good.
There is no other way.

-J

Persistence & Tenacity

(It ended up being chicken scraps in cornmeal mush, and my abs were sore the next day, cool effect from the burpees, as I do them more I’ll post more on them.)