135 pound time bomb (the Skrillex Remix)

Bucket List Item #124:
Answer this question: What is it like to live with out knees?

Ever since Saturday's leg workout my body's lower half has physiologically revolted. I am now a threat to myself. Unable to climb or descend stairs upright, unable to out run a parked car, or bend over to pick up any object affected by gravity. All because of two sets of fifteen squats with 135 pounds on my shoulders. The mad man of physical fitness has dialed my number on this hypertrophy phase. Night sweats and bathroom screams.

I fear adult protective services will get a call from concerned neighbors as I moan in a zombie like shuffle from the front door to the mail box over the next few weeks. No right minded, tax paying suburanite will allow my daily death march to go unpunished. Those ninnies are going to sick the unholy HOA on me!

To make matters worse, just today I had to take a running head-start to clear the 6" curb in front of Office Depot. Imagine the Tin Man with a Forest Gump accent stiff legging across a parking lot, trying not to draw attention to a home grown involuntary Parkour. That feat of embarrassment was only matched by the evil stink-eye Mr. Suburban Strip Mall rent-a-cop gave me as I whiniest in accomplishment. I better get out of here before this pig-faced screw puts me under arrest for suspicion of public intoxication!

Does that donut pillow come in Rebel Red?

We may lose every reader during this journey, but it will be one heck of a slide to the land of blog mediocrity. So be it! As Cortez was once misquoted moments after storming the shore; "Burn the boats. Turn up the EDM. Weez gonna get weird!"

This past week saw the ushering in of phase IV of hypertrophy; a.k.a. "Led Legs and Nightmares." The master of ceremonies has crafted this phase of calf burning jump rope sessions, box jumps, and piano cords shirring squats. Five straight days of some serious goodies. There have been extinction level events that put less fear in me compared to excruciating pain that sitting down in the coming days will bring.

Here is a sampling of the leg hurt locker:

    * 20 minute jump rope. (giggle now... I dare you to try it for more than 3 minutes!)

    * 45 minutes on Stair Master.

    * Seated 24" box jumps followed by reverse box jumps.

It has begun. My long slow march toward glory above the rim.  A journey that goes through hurt town, population me. He is building castles in my legs, and there is currently a massive war between the dragons and kings set to the sweet sweet sounds of Swedish House Mafia. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1y6smkh6c-0 Bengay and road flares!

As noted in previous post, the next ten months are dedicated to training for the 38th birthday celebratory dunk. However, to keep in good standing with our publishing house and venture capitalist funding this twisted road trip, we have obligations to meet. It goes without mentioning that our love for postulation, bloviation, and pontification, fuels me and Jaron . So we're proud to announce the near completion of a tell all memoir; "Destinies Stepchild: White Men Who Can't Jump and the Women Who Love to Tolerate Them."

Jump the Shark

Jaron and I recently launched a new business venture to compete with the gluten free equivalent to endurance competitions; the Tough Mudder. We're calling it, "The ODJ: More of a mindset than a cult." Instead of paying $100 dollars to get an ice cube enema and commando crawling through Mother Nature's intestinal fluid with four of your best friends; we're offering a free gauntlet of pointless yuppie accomplishments. Bring your own GoPro to capture a YouTube worthy counter view point to our heavily doctored footage and overly dubbed heckling of your team's performance. (Think, Mysterious Science Theater 3000 meets The Gong Show.)

Google the obstacles we will be featuring; not responsible for any HR or marital troubles the images may bring.

• The Awkward Man-on-Man bear hug relay... a timed event, scored on duration and level of deferred embarrassment.
• Reverse Rio Grande drug mule swim with the optional coyote upgrade.
• Blindfold Roman candle dueling.
• Midget tossing. (so politically incorrect it requires a liability waiver and pre-race sensitivity training.)
• A fun run through Riverside County's meth villages with life-time supply vouchers for Sudafed, Drano, brake fluid and Ether, duct taped to your day-glow metallic jump suit. Them dirt people are attracted to shiny objects.
• (All ties will be settled by the Electronic White Rabbit Kool-Aid Spa Challenge... winner goes to the person who's heart stops last after the radio drops)  

Remember folks, a squirrelly person can learn to cope with things like seeing their buddy crawling up a river of pooh with a plastic knife in his teeth, but nobody should be asked to handle this corporate trip. Tough Mudder is what the whole hip world would be doing every Saturday morning if the British had won the war. Union Jacks and poor dental hygiene.

post script... I was trapped in a LAX hotel all last week with crappy food, piss poor work out equipment, and a ton of day dreaming time to work on our new venture.

A Man or a Muppet

Every great underdog movie of the past three decades has had the inspirational video montage to bridge large gaps of the plot. Rocky III running along the sunny beaches of Pittsburgh or Rocky IV running through the Siberian outback that looked more like Wyoming... Hearts on fire, strong desire! And my personal favorite, Teen Wolf  ripping up the court as a ball-hogging one man wolf pack. Wait... that last part was from that movie...uh, never mind! The past month has been my underdog movie montage of training. No challenges. No revisions to the work outs. And no love from the haters. As my great mentor and home town coach once said, "chopping wood, and carrying water."

The wonderful thing about a month long routine of work outs is I got to see the routine of other gym slugs. I now appreciate, like a wine snob in Napa Valley, the evolution of "brother" into a functional portmanteau. Bromance. Brodown. Brohug. Brotocol. Yada, yada, yada... Comic fodder for my mind of useless trivia and partially digested daydreams. However, I can not stand the sight of, nor the disturbing frequency of people jumping on the barefoot shoe bandwagon. Get some real shoes on, you freaking five toed, foot gloved zombies!!! Parkour just rang... cattle cars are on their way.