Dela...where???

"Or imagine being able to be magically whisked away to Delaware! Hi... I'm in Delaware.." Wayne's World

As many of our faithful readers already know about Jaron and I, we have yet to relinquish amateur blogger status, requiring us to maintain day jobs. Recently I went all Johnny Paycheck on the old salt mine and decided to hang a new shingle out. As part of any new job there is the standard product training and acculturation, which for me meant a ten day stint in the first state of the United States of  'Merica... Delaware! Home of Vice President Biden, and... uh... and... hmmm... that might be it for notables.

Even though the hotel accommodations were great, their work out ammonites lacked. If you have travelled for business you will pick up on what I'm laying down when it comes to describing the piss poor exercise area modern chain motels provide us. The guys who design these over sized closets with tread mills are the spawn of the same glue sniffing family who claim the three foot deep wading pool is "Olympic sized." So every business trip requires fitness ingenuity and creativity.

With the weather on the East Coast turning cooler I was not about to run in motion or miss out on the lush green landscape that was not installed by a team of Mexi-mericans. (For those new to the blog... Team ODJ lives in the upper branch of the Mojave Desert.) To my surprise Delaware looks a whole lot like Nebraska at ground level. The bi-product of some weird government agricultural energy plot to get all of us to change from hydrocarbons to popcorn embryos. During one of my long runs I could've sworn I saw the sign to Gatlin... more than once. Things would've gotten pretty interesting if a midget Amish dude stepped in the road quoting the Book of Revelations. On second thought, that would've been some good blog material. Nevertheless, my next visit to the land of Biden, I might stick to the hotel tread mills and Dr. Phil regurgitations playing on the tube; don't want to end up on a corn cross just because a few side show freaks get all Jim Town on this wayfaring stranger trying to burn a few calories after a prior evening's Ruby Tuesday gluten bender. The Blue Man! Yes, the Blue Man! 

And the prodigal son returns!

Many doubted. Few believed.

Even fewer understood why

the prodigal son must return!

A note to our beloved readers across this great spinning rock -- the rumors are no longer speculation, now fact. The professor of pain, the mastermind of muscle sculpting, the tacticianer of cardio has returned to Las Vegas... The one, the only!... Jaron "JBK" Krause (last name redacted to protect our NSA handler).

My selfish pursuits are definitely met with this third installment of "JBK in Vegas." It's awesome to have my trainer in the same area code -- a weekly work out buddy with a respectable IQ to distract from the knuckle draggers. Not to mention a bro-escort for pilgrimages to our favorite all-you-can eat sushi spots. Only time will tell if the city has fully recovered from the last time the Nevada DMV awarded him an ID. It has been over a decade since his FBI papers resided in the great state of Nevada, and many things have changed for both he and the city of sin. May their courting go smoothly.

With the original ODJ practitioners teaming up again, I expect greatness for the both of us. First order of business is to finalize the latest challenge; The 15/4/20 Slow Grind. 15% incline at 4 mph for 20 minutes on the tread mill. As of last attempt this week I am up to 20 minutes at 15% incline going 3 mph. The sweat ring runs so low that my belly button doubles as a shot glass. If you think this challenge is weak, take a read below an enjoy Jaron's attempt at the 15/4/20 challenge. If you attempt this challenge we suggest you put EMS on speed dial and tell your next closest relative where the will is stored, because the Slow Grind could end you.  

Welcome back to Vegas, you crazy landlord of the House of Pain!

I did not order the one free lobotomy with my gym membership.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Well, well, well the book-end of summer has come and gone... For our Uncle Sam readers, I hope Labor Day weekend went swimmingly. It is great to be back on the blog train after a brief summer break. My Labor Day weekend was great; thanks for asking. I grabbed a plate of seared beast of burden flesh to celebrate a much needed day of rest for the undocumented Mexi-mericans and Far East carpal tunnel class. Personally, I don't know anyone who actually meets the standards of the original laborer, so I celebrated the people keeping my HOA happy, assembling the kid's toys, and the herd of agriculture workers picking and preparing my grocery.

In addition to a weekend of laboring, I started a new day job this past week. It's a dream sales job with an amazing company. However, the telecom folks decided to set me up with a Steve Jobs' special. Prior to the shotgun conversion, my professional Äppärät has been the Blackberry; a functional work horse! In the gym it supplied uninterrupted Pandora interweb radio. For over a year the world within the gym has been a mere visual pleasure set to a soundtrack of random streams of audio goodness. So when I turned in the berry for the chic iLame it never occurred to me to get corporate green-light for adding streaming audio goodness. Telecom approval still pending as of press time.

For the past few days in the gym I have had the pleasure of adding people hearing to my work out regiment. Man there are some moooorrrr'ons on this planet. The Great One in the sky made a good decision to make breathing and cardio function involuntary, which is fully validated on the floor of the free weight area of my gym. I am thinking about going in tomorrow with cotton balls in my ears. These knuckle draggers could actually cause verbal induced Alzheimer's. Worse, I feel like Joel Barish in Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind... hearing the meat head's communicate is like machine gunning lacunar amnesia darts in my brain bucket. So don't be surprised if the police come across a scruffy faced middle-aged man negotiating a truce to the cola wars in 7-Eleven only wearing a Flamingo bathrobe and Fiesso white patent leather low-tops if the telecom stiffs deny my request for a Pandora app.

This little piggy went to market...

Recently I had to call and audible on the jump rope portion of the weekly work out plan. The three little piggies on each foot were beginning early stages of succession. I informed the practitioner of pain that I'd survived two months of shin splints, chronic arch aches, and the embarrassment of jumping rope -- however, the three amigos were hurting so bad that during a kick set at last week's swim practice it felt as if two or four of them just gave up the ghost. The ODJ rule book states that modifications are allowed, but it must air on the side of extreme. So, being an ODJ fundamentalist, Jaron removed the jump rope and added incline tread mill. Shoot me now!

The set is a pretty straight forward; 20-minutes, max the incline of your tread mill (15% for the fine Gold's Gym stock) and then pump the MPH up to a paint drying speed of 4.0 miles per hour. Bad Water flat land 4.0 mph for yours truly is a brisk mall walk pace, or the George Clinton House of Blues quick step as Jaron and I like to call it. In my mind I was preparing to cry ODJ foul on my man for going on the weak. Then I attempted the set. Holy Helens! Even though I was taking :30 second breaks ever three minutes and rocking at a 3.5 mph speed, Mick threw in the towel at 13:15 after the smelling salts proved ineffective. A man's heart beat should never look like a subwoofer dropping DJ Magic Mike's bass test.

 

Slowing down the speed and increasing the incline is the wave of the future for this former fat guy. I have found my new challenge... survive 20 minutes of 15% incline at 4.0mph with no breaks.

 

To be continued...









Once around the Sun

It has been a great year under the fitness tutelage of the grand master of flash mobs. I am proud to announce that shortly after this post has been scrubbed by our cute NSA intern, Jaron will be relocating a half-dozen hundred miles south on the ole Spanish Trail. I am very excited to have my brother in ODJ residing in Vegas once again. As us desert rats commonly tell outsiders... The UNLV is our university, but it stands for U Never Leave Vegas. Unlike most failed escape attempts by the passengers on the Las Vegas merry-go-around, Jaron was the one person that needed to leave for a spell in order to become a successful fitness consultant (don't need to hold that rib in!) and even more successful entrepreneur. You ever seen the movie Hancock? Jaron is Hancock, Vegas is Charlize Theron. Nuff said!

 

To honor the triumphant return of Sin City's prodigal son, I would like all our esteemed to rent Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, pump "Mambo No. 5" by Lou Bega, and hacky-sack in your Speedo (underwear is not a substitute). 

Staple them elbows to the table!

Hey J! Did you know that this resort's claim to fame is consuming 150 pounds of butter every day?

If you have followed this blog for any length of time you know that there is no hiding from the fact that my writing prose and choice of topics could never pay the bills. Days're getting longer... Masters got me work'n... Some day he set me free. Last week the day job flew me into the ATL for our annual conference. HOLY HEART ATTACK! Growing up in Tennessee never fully prepared me for visiting the motherland as a grown, health conscious, thirty-something. No wonder the cuisine is nicknamed "soul food"... you have to sell your soul to get off that dietary crack. Gets a fool all shook up; freaking cat nip for fat people.

Thankfully Jaron wears his Troy Aikman commemorative Dallas Cowboys helmet around the house, he nearly took a sailors dive into the big screen when he read my text. Dude! Heading to the Dirty South for a week. Weight room sucks. Constitution is weak. Like a true practitioner of guerrilla fitness, the MacGyver of personal training designed a traveling work out plan from six breath mints and a Bone Thugs-n-Harmony compact disc. It kinda freaked out the hotel help, but it got the job done.

Financial advisory note:
Buy stock in every witch doctor med-co peddling arterial plaque medicine in the South.

Who fired Atlas?

Failure is always an option. A very real possibility with disturbingly high probability. With no known human or marsupial to ever fully realize ODJ, failure must be respected. Failure is the nauseating cold sweats before quitting a job. Failure is the thousand yard stare after a near ELE with a semi-truck. Failure is why NASCAR is a multi-billion dollar cottage industry. Failure is always an option. But a wise man once stepped toward failure and cried out; "Pain heals...Chicks dig scars... Glory last forever!"      --Achieving ODJ

 
Hopefully the IOC has no plans to ban carisoprodol, or my 2014 Olympic curling debut may be in jeopardy. My lower back is longing for the days of bocce ball and shuffle board on the lido deck. However, for the time being, I am the willful servant to the prodigal son of pain. Jaron has written a great back & arms work out. That is, if you're looking to go on long term disability. Last week my arms would not fully flex, making for a few awkward client hand shakes. Visualize two forklift arms with meat gloves extended outward. One person actually shook both my hands at the same time and asked if it was a Southerner thing. I am lost.

Unable to fully disclose his proprietary workout, I feel it is within contractual language to speak on the weighted underhand pull-ups. Ten pounds is fo'real! As Taylor likes to say, "Its miserable and magical!"

Post Script
If anyone has the below phone number, I apologize. This is what butt dialing on the narrow grip cable rows looks like; 11119999922222*********111199999922222*******