partner.”
“Cool.”
Everyone gets partnered up. There’s one group of three guys, but they’re the ones that are wearing the meggings, so I figure they’ve got it handled.
“Partner one goes out for a four hundred meter run,” Ashley begins, “while partner two starts with ten burpees. This is the kind of burpee we’re looking for today. Don’t get caught up in being perfect.” Ashley thrusts her feet back, lands in a push up stance, goes all the way down to the ground, hops her feet back up to where her hands just were and then jumps into the air, clapping her hands above her head. She does this like she could do it all day while carrying on a leisurely conversation.
She continues. “If partner two finishes the ten burpees before partner one gets back, partner two will move on to ten air squats – which we did in the warm up. If partner one still isn’t back, they move on to the mountain climbers. Sasha will demo the mountain climbers.” Another coach steps forward, she’s a petite thing, appears to be made out of one hundred percent muscle, and would totally kill on American Ninja Warrior. She demonstrates the mountain climbers, which is more holding your body in a plank position while jumping your feet up to your hands. Only this time, alternating! I’m so going to die.
“Thanks, Sasha,” Ashley says. Sasha takes a little bow. “Now, if your partner still isn’t back from the run at this point, you better go out and find them.” Everyone laughs, but I feel like there is a distinct possibility that I’m going to run to the Buffalo Wild Wings instead of the pole with the blue tape.
Duncan raises his hand. “Hey Ashley, what happens if I come in from the run and Izzy is on mountain climber number five? Do I wait for her to finish?” Duncan asks, clearly knowing the answer to his question already.
“Why thanks for asking, Duncan. No, you would wait for her to finish that fifth mountain climber and then you would do number six through ten, before starting in on the burpees.”
“Oh, Ashley,” Duncan says again, “how do we score this W.O.D?”
“Another good question.” She gives him a thumbs up and the end of her thumb is missing. I’m really hoping that’s not a CrossFit-related injury. “Every time the mountain climbers are done, that’s one round. Any more questions?”
I have about a million, but everyone is already walking over to the counter and grabbing poker chips out of a set.
“This is how we keep track of the rounds,” Duncan says, taking out a tall stack of white chips. “The W.O.D. is eighteen minutes long, so we’ll probably go through all of these.”
“That’s optimistic,” I say, wishing the butterflies in my stomach would land already. “I’m aiming for two.”
We come to an agreement (basically Duncan tells me) that I’ll start off running, while Duncan does all the other exercises. A big timer on the wall by the door counts down and the running group rushes outside. This time, I decide that keeping an easy pace is smarter than going all out. I mean, the warm-up was more exercise than I’ve done in years, so this really is going to kill me.
Lorilee runs past, chanting, “I will not die. I will not die.” She laughs and then takes off.
I complete the four hundred meter run, glad that’s over, and head back into the gym. Duncan is doing burpees, two red chips laid out by his side. Damn, I’m slow!
He finishes the burpee he’s doing. “You’ve got two more,” he says, barely out of breath, and then he takes off.
I do one burpee, count to three, force myself to do the second burpee, and then move onto the air squats. Those aren’t too horrible, until I get to the eighth one and my legs are feeling kind of wobbly. Duncan comes back in and stops in front of me.
“Uh, you’ve got one more squat!” I shout.
He immediately launches into them and I head back out the door.
We continue on in this manner for the longest fucking eighteen
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