My first encounter with Angie

I have heard about her and read about her for a few months now, but I was pleased to make her acquaintance on Sunday. The date was set a week ahead of time, so as the days went on, I started to get nervous. Before our date I had a yoga class scheduled for 10am where I was hoping to get in a good, relaxing workout before our date. The instructor didn't show up, so I stayed and stretched for a bit and chatted with the others that were there to keep myself loose. I walked home and spent the rest of the morning A.D.D. 'cleaning'. I didn't get much done, but I made quite a mess of the living room, dining room and basement while doing a lot of little things (re: just moved a lot of things around and made a mess of everything).

At 11:45am I headed out on my bike to meet up for our noontime engagement. There were a few other that were going to be there with me, and I think it would be a first for them as well. We all gathered in a side room to work out some nervous tension before slowly filtering into the main room to meet her head on; face to face.

Everything started off smoothly with brief introductions before all hell broke loose.

I've never felt so abused from another girl – physically, mentally or emotionally. She hurt me all over and never let up. When I thought she was through beating up on my arms, shoulders, and back, she moved to my torso for more abuse. After punishing my core, she moved on to my lowering half, almost bringing me to my knees over and over again. What would've put a cherry on top of the situation would've been if Angie just kicked me in the gut to make me puke. I think I would've felt better after those 30 or so minutes.

This is Angie:

100 pull ups
100 push ups
100 sit ups
100 squats

I was set up with the rings and, since most of us can't do a pull up, we put one foot up on a box that was set up under our rings/bars to give us a little extra 'oomph' to get our chins up. My shoulders and lats were toast. I moved on to the push ups and started off on my knees while using the "Perfect Push Up handles". Okay, they were just regular handles and I wasn't simulating a punch, but did go deep and kept good form. I finally switched out and went palms to mat for the rest of the way. I don't know at what number I switched, but my sweaty hands kept slipping on the mat and I had a nice pool of sweat from my chin and forehead forming below me. Every time I went down, I touched chest to mat and tried to think about driving up with bellybutton first before my arms. Try to picture that; it forces you to keep your core tight and not sag. By the time I hit 70 or so, my arms were toast. I heard what number other people were on, so I didn’t want to rest too much between reps; it motivated me to work harder.

Once I hit 100, I turned over and laid in the puddle of sweat I created to start my 100 sit ups. These sit ups are knees bent, legs apart, toes up, dig your heels into the mat, arms stretched out overhead, hands over lapping, come up and reach through your legs and go back down sit ups. Get it? Good, now only 99 more to do. Crunches are easy to do, but I didn't want to blow up trying to do sit ups too fast, nor did I want to get too comfortable lying down. I stayed focused on my form and on my breathing an kept a nice, consistent pace the entire time. I only stopped a couple times near the end to catch my breath, but was so close to the end with the workout I was ready for it to be over.

Onto the body weight squats, and I thought it would be good to count to 25 four times. I figured aiming for a lower number will help me keep my mind off the actual total. And I should've known it would happen, but I ended up losing count; or did I? I still don't know. I lined up my medicine ball, stepped around and then in front of it, and started knocking out my squats – butt to ball. I focused on good form – exploding up and pushing through my heels. They felt so easy and went by so quickly that I wasn’t sure if I miscounted or not, so to be fair I did another set of 25 for a grad total of 100... or 125. Who knows?

It should’ve been for time, but I don't think anyone knows how long the workout took them. Next time Angie comes around, I'm sure we'll time ourselves so we have something to gauge our improvement off of. But for now, the coaches just wanted to give us a brief glimpse of hell.

It was nice to have finally met Angie. I only wish I could stand up and lift my arm to shake her hand.