Day in the life of Brian

Day In The Life

My day starts around 5:30am. I say around 5:30 because well it depends what kind of workout I had the night before. If it was a session with Damir, Kristy usually needs to peel me out of bed. It is Thursday morning so I awake while Kristy is in the shower. As I hear the water from the shower I lay there in bed and think about last night workout. It is funny how much things change, before I started at alive the first thing I would think about was what I was going to make for dinner that night and what I was going to have from MacDonald’s for lunch. After starting at alive I my first thoughts were oh my what will I be allowed to eat today. But in the last three months or so my first thoughts are about what workout I did the night before.

Last night’s workout was Damir’s kickboxing boot camp. It was awesome! My regular Wednesday night partner was back from a few weeks off. So last night’s workout was very intense. A good regular kickboxing partner is like having a great dance partner. They know where your punches are going to land, they know when you need encouragement to go faster and harder. They know when to hold the pads lower when you kick so you can catch your breath and they know when to hold them up higher to push you a little harder. If flows beautifully, without missing a beat. Also my partner, Lisa is much taller than me so I get a great workout on both sides, with the pad and with the gloves.

As I hear Kristy turning off the water, that is my queue to start moving. As I put my feet down on the ground to stand up, I take a deep breath in. As I stand up I can feel the pain fire up and down legs. Once I am up I lean back into the bed, hands down as I take some of the weight of my legs as I stretch. This is a morning routine that will help me get moving. I don’t remember what is was like to get out of bed without pain in my legs. As I start moving the pain fires up and down my legs even more.

As I grab my lunch, gym bag and the shake Kristy made for me earlier and I head to the bus stop. As I walk to the bus stop I put my ear buds in my ears and start blasting my favourite playlist on my Iphone. Now my legs are feeling a little better. As I get to the bus stop I pop open my shake and finish it as I wait for the bus. The bus ride is always the same I start preparing myself mentally for the day. I repeat to myself I won’t buy any chocolate on my way into work today. I am strong I will not do it. On rough morning I change my Iphone background to Damir or Holly’s picture to help me focus. I get off the bus and walk across the Wal-Mart parking lot I can feel the anxiety of walking in the doors, going past all the junk food. I take one more deep breath and head in. I walk by the crap with my head down, repeating you are strong don’t do it. I make it to the stairs and I proudly climb them one stair on foot at a time. There was a time I took them one stair two feet, but now I just walk up them with a good pace.

My Job at Wal-Mart is semi physical and very repetitive. The rest of the day is very safe food wise, first because I won’t go back on the sales floor until I leave. Second today is Thursday so there won’t be any free food in the staff lounge today. They do have free doughnuts or cake (when someone leaves), and pizza from time to time, but that mostly only happens on a Fridays so I am pretty sure today is safe.

Things go well until I am about to leave, then I start worrying I won’t be able to make it out of here without buy some chocolate or potato chips. After I punch out and head down the stairs I am in full panic mode, bad thoughts start filling my head, stuff like, you are going to work very hard today you can have a little chocolate. It will be ok. Go for it. I stop off at the pharmacy and pick up a protein bar and head for the front tills. By now my heart is pounding as I get closer to the till and the impulse rack by the till. As I get to the till I grab a coke zero out of the cooler and a Ferrero Rocher 3 pack off the impulse rack and go though the till. As I walk across the parking lot to the bus stop I pop open my coke zero and take a drink. I reach the bus stop bench and sit down. I pull out the Protein Bar and the Ferrero Rocher and I stare at them both weighing out which one I am going to eat. I put the Ferrero Rocher back into my gym bag and I open the protein bar. As I eat the protein bar a car with some teenagers goes by, they see me eating and roll down there window and make a derogatory statement towards me about my weight (I wish I could say this doesn’t happen very often, but it does most days) that is when I pop my ear buds in my ears and start my afternoon playlist on my Iphone. The bus ride to Alive is very awesome; as I sit on the bus I can feel the stress of the day peel off me. I start getting excited as it is Thursday, a training day with Damir. Thursday’s workout is like a last chance workout with Damir before I weigh in for the week. So I start think what is it going to be today! A crazy circuit outside with a giant tire, ropes and sled, or will it be the Hill of Hell or maybe a crazy circuit inside Alive with Kettle bells, Trx, and me pulling Ryan, Damir and Sam up the hallway. I get off the bus and head to Alive. As I cross the parking lot to alive I checkout the park across the street. I see no tire so I don’t think we are going outside.

As I open the door to Alive Sam says Hi Brian. I smile and see Damir sitting beside her. I say hi and open my bag and hand Damir the Ferrero Rocher. He smiles and opens them right away and pops one in his mouth. I tell him I am upset I even bought them. He says do not be so hard on yourself, yes you bought them, but you didn’t eat them. I get changed into my workout gear, Sam helps me put on my ankle brace. My Training Partner and best Friend Ryan arrives, fist bumping me on his way to the locker room. As Ryan gets changed I notice that Damir is bouncing off the walls! I know today is going to be intense.

We are staying inside, Damir explains the first Circuit. Stairs will be first for me, three sets up three flights. Next will be pushing Damir up the hallway and back. After that the lap pull down, and then it’s off to the medicine ball slam. Repeat.

So I start the up the stairs, up three flights and down. At the bottom I turn right around and head up right away and head back up. As I am starting my third set Damir check in with me and say let’s go, so I head back up the stairs, as I come down I came feel my heart pounding in my chest. As I reach the ground floor, Damir is waiting at the door. I stop to catch my breath, so Damir can put sliders under his feet, but he doesn’t. He just says Come on. He is facing me, as I put my hands on his shoulders; I begin to think this is going to be easy! I weigh at least twice as much as him. I start to push and he starts pushing back. It is every hard, he fights me for every inch like we are playing football. As we go down the hall I am thinking man he is one tuff son of a bitch. As we get to the end, I think I will get to catch my breath and I am wrong he immediately grabs me and we go back up the hall. I move over to the Lap pull down and start right away. My heart is pounding in my head and I can barely count as I pull down. I pound out the lap pull down, Damir see it was too easy and gives me a heavier weight for next time. I head over to the ball slam and start slamming it down, my heart is in the back and the front of my head and I lose count. I call it ten and pound though the next 20. As I finish the ball slam, Damir says I want us to get though this 3 more times. Take a small breather we will start again. By the time we get though the next 3 set, my legs feel like jelly, I have vomited in my mouth twice and my arms are just pulsing. As we finish I look over at Ryan and he has a pretty big sweat mark on his shirt. I look down and see mine is just as big. Damir say Cardio Brian. So I head over to the hamster wheel and start walking. Ryan joins me. We walk of another 30 minutes. We hop off and Ryan heads back down to the gym to stretch. I pull off my brace and head for the shower.

As we head to subway for dinner, Ryan and I talk a little, not much, because we are exhausted from our session with Damir. After dinner Ryan drops us off. I feed the cats, grab a coke zero and melt away in my chair to watch a little TV. Kristy begins to fall asleep, so I suggest we hit the hay. Kristy agrees and heads up the stairs. I sit a few minutes longer. To give her time to get into bed so I am not in her way. As I stand up my legs are so stiff. Exhausted I climb the stairs slowly. I plug in my Iphone in to charge for tomorrow and crawl in to bed next to Kristy and immediately fall asleep.

So this is an average Thursday in my life. I choose Thursday because it is the hardest day of the week for me. My work day is very busy and my workouts with Damir are insane.

Progress on my fitness goal this month is going well. I have done on of Ben’s Crazy Boot camp Saturday classes and plan to do this Saturday’s class as well. The hill of hell I have not yet been able to do as I have been rained out and smoked out as well. However on Friday I did Damir’s “Wheel of hell” program on hamster wheel for two hours, and he said that could count as doing the hill. Friday I hope to do the hill and I don’t think anyone is going with me yet. So if you want to join me let me know.