Every once in a while we get ourselves out of bed on a Monday morning (even the wet, rainy ones), lace up those kicks, show up to the deck, put in the hard work, and get ourselves home. It might be a little less flashy, or fancy, or even less weird than some other mornings. But the hard work we put in, while simple and straight forward, was some of the best free fitness you’re ever gonna get.
Today we did a deck of cards. One of those old school, actual deck-of-cards workouts like they did every week at the start of NP. And we did it right next to the Storrow Drive off-ramp–so everyone exiting Storrow Dr. for Kenmore square drove right by us. In between sets of burpees and pushups, Payne was busy flashing cars in pursuit of honks. Everyone picked between the “Racing” deck for those looking to push the speed while completing the deck and a “Get shit done” deck for everyone else. We did pushups, situps, burpees, and lunges for the 4 suits and jokers meant you hugged two people.
This is the beauty of a true #DestinationDeck. It’s simple and hard–104 repetitions of each exercise paired with a suit–and no matter how long it took you to complete it, you’re confident you’ll feel that hard work tomorrow. As Joev explained mid-Jack of lunges, “Lunges have the highest ease to soreness ratio. You think you’re good while you’re doing them but tomorrow you won’t be able to walk.” (or something almost like that exact quote) He’s totally right. When else would you actually do 104 lunges? The truth is you probably wouldn’t. Ever. The meeting up of the tribe, despite the wet grass, despite the mud and occasional dollops of goose poop, makes the hard work so much easier.
I’d like to say the tribe has the highest challenge-to-fuck-yeah ratio. The things you find most challenging on your own become the most exciting, fun, easy to just say yes to, when you do them together.
So the next Monday you hesitate to show up…the next rainy or cold Monday…the next Monday you think, “oh it’ll just be ‘this’ or ‘that,’ which I don’t want to do anyway,” remember days like today. Harry will.
Whether you were there or not, it was a deck worth being at. If you’re FOMO’ing, then good. And if you nailed it this morning, don’t forget it. I don’t see social media feeds of people just crushing deck-of-cards or other workouts in their living rooms at home on Monday mornings instead of showing up. So whatever the weather, whatever the workout might be, whatever the #excuses that might draw you away, discard those. The destination may be like a vacation or a tiny plot of Boston you’ve never explored before. The workout may be one of those old fashioned decks or some elaborate, wacky, wild fun-fest. No matter what, you’ll be glad you showed up.
