Workout Wednesday: The Spartans' Recess

Ah, I hope you are picking up on the tone of the title of this post.

I could have also titled this post many other ways:

- Workout Wednesday: The Sauna Run-in-Place "Workout"
- Workout Wednesday: The “Let’s Wear Black and Run in the Dark” Workout
- Workout Wednesday: The “Remind Everyone Why Crossfit Guys are Douchey” Workout
- Workout Wednesday: The “We Didn’t Plan This At All” Workout
- Workout Wednesday: The “Let’s Exercise in an Underground Parking Garage” Workout
- Workout Wednesday: The Non-Workout
- Workout Wednesday: Let’s Get a Free Shirt and Leave
- Workout Wednesday: Not-Really-a-Spartan-Training

I could go on and on.

For those of you who are confused, my friend Kristen is doing the Spartan Beast Race in Midway. I am too much of a wuss to sign up for it. It’s a lot of running, and it makes you get dirty. Let’s be honest, Janae hates getting dirty, like more than is reasonable (thanks, mom). Kristen asked me to come with her to this two-hour workout on Friday, February 21. I was extremely intimidated, anticipating having to flip enormous tires, do lots of strength moves, rope climbing, and lots of spiderman crawling. I was hesitant to sign up, but she told me "exercise is your life!" so I figured I was capable. But on the day of the event, even Kristen was anxious about it. All of this worrying was for naught, though.

Let’s review a schedule of the night, shall we? In 40 steps, here we go:

1. Check in at 7.
2. Get a cool black wristband that says “Unbreakable” to make you feel like a badass. The night will be good!
3. Find a place in the over-crowded, humid turf-floored room to run in place.
4. Try to listen to the only instructor in the room, who is the epitome of a Crossfit guy, who has no microphone or megaphone, yelling at hundreds of us, expecting us to be able to hear.
5. Run in place for 20 minutes.
6. Yell “aroo, aroo, aroo” when the instructor says to.
7. Pick up the pace of your effective run-in-place workout at random times when teacher says to.
8. Maneuver quickly through ridiculous amount of people, avoiding elbows and heels, to retrieve your free shirt. It says, “I am training for a Spartan Beast.” It is black. It also makes you feel like a badass. The night will be great!
9. Put the shirt down with your water.
10. Realize that the idiot who is yelling “instructions” at us is telling us we have to put on the shirt.
11. Put on the shirt over your neon pink tank, thus doubling the heat.
12. Head outside at 7:30 at night wearing a black shirt, to run down a residential street.
13. Avoid coughing due to the excessively cold air.
14. Try not to get hit by local drivers who can’t see you in your black shirt. Not your neon pink one.
15. End your run by going into the underground parking lot.
16. Spread out with all the other suckers there, along the length of the parking lot.
17. Run in place.
18. Watch the “instructor” (who you now realize is only 5’5) walk up and down the length of the parking lot to yell his instructions five more times, while wearing a hoodie as we are all sweating. What’s that? No megaphone? Only one instructor? Not doing anything?
19. Get into a crab walk position, and touch opposite hand to opposite foot. Alternate.
20. Run in place.
21. Cry to your friend about your dirty, freezing hands.
22. Get into a bear crawl position, and lift opposite leg and opposite hand simultaneously.
23. Cry again about your really dirty, numb hands.
24. Run in place.
25. Do some jumping jacks.
26. Realize he is probably making this shiz up as he goes.
27. Talk with your friend about how this is not hard, and discuss whether it is going to be like this the whole time.
28. Repeat 19-27 a couple more times, as randomly as you want to imagine it.
29. Whine because your towel and water are upstairs in the smelly, humid turf room.
30. Do some burpees.
31. Run in place.
32. Cry about your dirty hands.
33. Do more burpees, like these aren’t bad enough on a clean surface.
34. Run in place.
35. Listen as a nearby woman informs you that there is glass on the ground.
36. Tell her, “Oh great! There’s probably also car oil, cigarette ash, spit, and a variety of other human waste we are rubbing our hands in.”
37. Complain vocally with your friend about what a huge joke this whole thing is.
38. Wonder how much longer this nonsense will go on.
39. Decide with your friend to bail.
40. Run upstairs, wash your disgusting hands, grab your things, and leave at 8 instead of 9.

(41. Go get custard at Culver’s because you deserve it after all that hard work.)

Folks, as much as it may have looked like a joke, this all really happened.

It’s like someone said, “I have an idea. Let’s let hundreds of people sign up for a Spartan Beast training. Let’s make them think it will be super hard. But really, we have no room for all these people. So we are just going to wing it in a parking lot, and do lots of cardio. One instructor and lots of people? No problem. We’ll give them a free t-shirt, and everyone will be happy.”

I don’t believe this was any indication of how the actual race would go. Just looking at pictures of the real course online makes me want to cry in pain and exhaustion. This workout was more like the children of Sparta's school recess.

Just as a tip, if you ever sign up for a Spartan Beast Race, I bet you could make your own workout at home a lot harder than the little Crossfit guy without the megaphone.

I mean, just check Pinterest.