My buddy Jed and I were looking at the goals board at the gym back in May and noticed somebody had written 1,500 total push-ups as that month’s goal. I’m unclear on the details after that, kind of like that time I drank a bunch of wine and tequila sunrises in Sardinia and I may or may not have ended up singing karaoke and swimming in the pool in my underpants before absolutely wrecking the bathroom and lying in the shower, trying to remember the word for ambulance in Italian, but Jed said later that I had committed to doing 1,500 push-ups during the month of June.
I had started doing regular push-ups, no modifications, a month or two prior, so I thought, “All right. Why not?” Granted, I could do only about four or five that looked decent before they morphed into something akin to a really bad and slow break-dancing move, but whatever. Fifty a day. I’d get really good at them.
I averaged fifty a day for nine days before I started being really grumpy about it. My upper back and shoulders felt like I’d been in a really violent car wreck. That’s when Coach Phil was all, “Yeah, you’re supposed to rest, dumbass.” Actually, he was much nicer to me than that and even drew graphs to show that I was not doing myself any favors with my current regimen. But I realized he was right and called myself a dumbass. I took the day after that off, and—miracle of miracles!—my push-ups the following day were EASY.
So periodically, I’ve rested, once for two days in a row, and I’ve done up to 124 in a day. A lot of them still look ugly, I’m not gonna lie. And the only reason I’ve done them is because I made this ridiculous pact with Jed. (Thanks, Jed!)
But it’s June 28, and, people, I have 151 push-ups to reach 1,500. Now’s when you cheer me on.
