When I was younger our PE teacher Mr Duffy called a few of
us to the front of assembly. As I walked up to the front, I contemplated what
trouble I was in, trying to figure out what they could pin on me during this
soon to be public trial.
AS I got to the front, where there were now 6 or 7 of us that were that were called, I looked at
my co accused, confusion set in. I couldn’t recall a single crime or misdemeanour
committed with all of these guys.
My fear of a public lynching dropped somewhat, as we were
all handed a test. Mr Duffy, then said to us that the first person to complete
the test would be given a prize.
I immediately turned the page and before listening to any
instructions, I began using fingers and thumbs to do additions, quickly working
my way through the 10 or so questions set before us.
To my dismay, my best friend at the time Kunle, who was far far better than I at
Maths, had finished the test first, I wasn’t even second or third.
I bring up that day because a lesson I should have learned
then, resurfaced today.
On the first day of every week (Sunday in the UAE) I like to
just do a cardio or Crossfit session. Today I choose the Omar WOD. (workout of
the day)
The fantastic thing about crossfit is you don’t need to
spend lots of money train, you don’t even need to join a crossfit gym, they
post a different WOD each day, and you go out and give it a go.
They also encourage the community to post times, so people have something to
work towards.
This particular morning, I looked up the Omar, scrolled down slightly, saw a 6.03
time, and wondered down to the gym.
The Omar consists of the following:
95 pound barbell Thrusters, 10
15 Bar-facing burpees
95 pound barbell Thrusters, 20
25 Bar-facing burpees
95 pound barbell Thrusters, 30
35 Bar-facing burpees
6 Minutes into the exercise, it dawned on me that I was
going to finish nowhere near the WOD time. I nearly dropped the weight on my
head and instead of jumping over the bar to do the burpee is trotted like a
broken horse.
The last 30 Thrusters were soul destroying, I had planned to try to get to 15
before taking a small rest, but after 10, it got too much so the whole thing took
three attempts.
By the end, I had finished in 9:35 and was gutted, I really
really pushed, and was nowhere near 6 minutes.
As I walked sadly home I went on to the Crossfit website (www.crossfit.com) to
look at some other times to see how bloody bad I was, I then noticed something.
Yes the first post said 6:03, but that wasn’t the time he did it in, but the
damn time of day he posted it.
This brings me back to that day in school, Mr Duffy hadn’t brought us up there
to see who could finish the test the quickest. As Kunle awaited his Prize for
finishing first, Mr Duffy asked him to read the front page.
On the front page of the test, it clearly said “Read all the
questions before starting the test” He then asked Kunle to question 11, which
simply read “ Do not answer any of the questions”
I should have learned that day to not half read something
before jumping in with both feet, I didn’t. Today, I learned never do a bloody
Crossfit WOD without reading through it properly and nearly killing myself in
the process.
I kid you not, my chest is still burning.
Then straight onto the big event, our quiz night! A brilliant 65 friends, and colleagues came to support us on the night, from all corners of the planet and all level of quiz knowledge. A small fear was soon realised, I passed the microphone to Nas at witnessed the transformation from annoying to really loud and annoying, I created a monster. He definetly enjoyed having the power of being able to make people listen to him. Bravo to Abs, he wrote the questions to his first quiz and quickly came to a simple understanding, against his adamant belief not everyone is a fan of Nintendo, harry potter and comic books! The poor man was heart broken
4000 questions later we had winners, the PWC girls doing a great job despite the small number of them. Then there was our raffle, we had thankfully been given some great prizes - THANKYOU Rotana , Hilton and Raddisson Blu and the crowd gleefully received them, many many smiley faces! One of the prizes was so good we held an auction and took a brilliant donation of 1800 dirhams from our friend Nina! Great end to the night, over 9000 dirhams raised. On a quick tally up we only have 6000 left to go!!