Often times a number is just that, a number. It has no real meaning or significance to people. But then suddenly one little event happens and that number is linked to that moment forever.
This was the case for me last Thursday night. It was my first training session since before Thanksgiving and one where I knew I would get my behind kicked. I had still been going to the gym regularly, but it had been a couple of weeks since I had worked out with my trainer.
So we meet at 6pm last Thursday. After some small talk and a warmup exercise or two, she lets me know the first brutal mission for me during this session: pyramid pushups.
Now, when I first started training with Amy back in the spring, she was feeling me out, seeing what I could and couldn’t do. One of the things she had me do was pushups. Nothing fancy, nothing crazy, just regular pushups.
It didn’t take long for her to see where I was at. I could barely get through two pushups before my arms would give out.
So it’s something we’ve worked on, little by little, and something I’ve done on my own. There is no way I should only be able to struggle through two pushups.
The pyramid pushups are doing sets of 10, then 9, then 8 all the way to one, then reverse back from one to 10. You do take breaks after each set (or at least I do), and she added a wrinkle where on the solo pushup, I had to hold it when I went down before coming up.
It is about as fun as it sounds.
But it was a milestone for me, a personal achievement, and one I was and am very proud of. And it led to a number having more meaning to me than it ever did before.
89.
That was how many I was able to do before my arms were like jell-o. I completed all the sets from 10-1, then from 1-7. As I went to do the set of eight, I got to number six before crashing to the floor.
It made me feel unbelievable. Amy was very proud.
It was a long way from two. And 89 will always have a different, more meaningful place with me.
