who's the boss (not me)

Sadly my Flylady kitchen timer died recently.  I blame Steve.  He was using it to time his Tabata protocol workouts and it suddenly went all pale and foggy and then stopped.  So I splashed out on a Gymboss, which is a little timer for your wrist or arm that you can use to set intervals of work/rest. 

I'm supposed to be doing these Tabatas for reasons I won't go into right now, but I've been avoiding them because I know they are hard.  The initial workout is 20 seconds of high-intensity work, followed by 10 seconds rest.  You repeat this for a total of 8 sets, which adds up to 4 minutes.  I did a mix of repetitive punching, kicking, knees, at the highest work rate I could produce.

So here's the thing.  I'm not in great physical shape, but I'm in pretty OK shape for a non-athlete.  I wouldn't want to run a marathan, but not long ago I ran ten miles at a 10-minute mile pace, and didn't die. 

I warmed up on the bike watching a UFC heavyweight DVD that Tom O'Shaughnessy sent Steve.  It had this really icky scary guy on there.  Guy so big and menacing you'd really need to just shoot him in his sleep rather than have any kind of confrontation with him.  That sort of got my rate coding up a bit.  I got good and sweaty and I was feeling pretty cocky when I put on the gloves, set up the Gymboss, and hit the shed.

After three minutes of Tabatas on the bag I was begging for mercy and  by the end of it I was completely dead.  Four minutes saw me felled like a tree.  Shaking for nearly an hour afterward.

I was in despair until Steve told me that when he does this in the gym, a lot of the guys can't get through more than half of the four minutes.  Still, Steve himself does these every day.  He does this routine 2 or 3 times a day (hence the demise of the Flylady timer).  And he's 24 years older than me.

Feeling humble right now.  And the veins in my forearms are standing out.