Boot to the face.

What a wonderful day today was.


The series of events are as follows. I wake up at around 9 am. I eat my before workout food. I stretch, and then begin to work out. Less than a minute into the jumps, my rope snaps in half. I don't even know what happened. One minutes I was jumping and the next I was getting hit in the back of the head by two whips. Dumbfounded, I decide not to waste time and hop on my bike. I come back a half out later and try the pull up. I couldn't even do one properly. Utterly pathetic. I spent about a half-hour flipping out and trying to yank myself up to the bar. I just couldn't do it. I actually don't think my bar is wide enough (or high enough, or the kung-fu sit ups) I have no idea how I'm going to fix that.

So, I give up on that and decide to add more reps and sets to the lawn mower. I do that pretty well. Then I go to do the pull-downs and my mother fuckin' resistance band snaps. This was the point where I lost it.

I moved on to the chair-dips, and added more onto those because it was now the only one I could do. Then I did the kung-fu sit ups and those were pathetic. I was getting nothing out of them and I could barely do any. So damn frustrating.

It was at this point I decided to give up. A little bit later I emailed Patrick, saying how it felt like I hadn't made any progress, and that I couldn't go on any longer, and then I went on a bike ride that lasted for about 2-3 hours while listening to blues.

I came back, checked my email, and this is what Pat sent me:

"Whoa, meltdown! Awesome dude,

Slow your roll man. Believe it or not, how you're feeling is very much like how I felt around the Day 60 mark. You've been working really hard, and your body is getting fatigued. Couple that with not enough sleep and you'll be a wreck.

Take a few days off if you need to. Consider this meltdown as a kind of sickness, and do as I advised if you caught a cold.

The weight gain is a good thing. 15 pounds is awesome, even if some of it goes the love handles. You're in the middle of a major body revision, and it's going to take up to two years to really convince your body that you're not satisfied with being an ectomorph. That doesn't mean 2 years like the PCP. These first 90 days are like someone giving you a push as you take off on a long bike ride. In the final month we'll talk about how to transition to more sustainable strategies.

Chat me up when you have the time man, and don't freak out, what you're going through is totally normal. If not for privacy concerns I'd forward you all the other meltdown emails I've received over the years. You're cool man!"

That, I admit, really chilled me out. So I leave you with this: a little while ago I thought to myself that I'm probably not going to be where I want to be at the end of the PCP. And that's ok. I realized that this is a starting point, a first step. Every house needs a good foundation. The PCP is that foundation.

Edit: Forgot to add the pics.
Rope - http://imgur.com/9tyxD.jpg
R. band - http://imgur.com/eF0XC.jpg