I nearly committed assisted suicide today, and by that I mean I went to the gym with my personal Kevorkian friend Travis.
A bit of background on Travis: I’ve known him since we became friends in college. We introduced ourselves after a hilarious misunderstanding–somehow, an inquiry as to whether I’d purchased a pet was misheard as an inquiry as to whether I’d had sex on a couch in the lobby of our dorm.
Travis isn’t and has never really been a big guy, but over the past two years or so he’s reduced his body fat and increased his muscle. He’s also studying to be an oral surgeon, which requires a hell of a lot of studying of anatomy, which in turn means that he knows the 768 jillion or so micro-parts of your body that move when you’re doing the barbell bench press. Valuable knowledge when you’re aiming to alter your body composition.
We had a chance meetup (at a liquor store) today, and decided that we’d go to the gym together. I usually go to the gym alone or with other friends, and I had never worked out with Travis before, so I was excited. This will be cool, I thought, we’ll go in, do some cardio, and be done after a little sweat.
Dead. Fucking. Wrong.
After thirty minutes of somewhat brisk cardio, we made our way over to the track. I thought that we were going to do some laps walking to cool down, then peace out. Fuck no. Instead, we did some interval training. Walk, jog, walk, jog and try not to die, walk, jog and then jog this lap harder so I don’t have to jog another lap oh my god how am I breathing.
If I were a stupid fuck, I’d say Travis was trying to kill me. But I’m smarter than that, and I know that Travis was pushing me to become better (a side effect being that he nearly killed me). I did laps today that, had Travis not been there to say “no, you can do this, I would never have thought about walking them, let alone jogging them (sometimes at a slightly quicker pace). And I’m thankful for it, because as a beginner I don’t always have that confidence inside me when I go to the gym alone. As a result, I sometimes do a little more than the bare minimum and get out. There might be more of those days ahead, but they won’t come soon, thanks to the motivational kick in the ass I got today.
Thank you, Travis–you physically fit, semi-slave driving, Belgian White Woodchuck-buying trainer-and-prick-in-residence.