Today was Mental Monday. No, I’m not going crazy, but it was a tough, tough workout. Paul wasn’t there and the other coaches worked extra hard to make sure we didn’t miss him. Why I call it Mental Monday is that to quote my old coach John Paty, I needed to get my “mind right.”
It was a long weekend. Saw my nephew graduate (good) and then saw my mom carted off to the emergency room (bad). Mom’s doing much better now but I came into this morning tired and brain-dead. I started with Clark’s coreapalooza. Lots of sit-ups, six-inches and planks seasoned with gassers (running across the width of the field twice and doing more core work). Next station was Wayne’s in-between the ladder drills. The cherry on the top of that little dessert was doing bear crawls through the ladders. That’s when I started to falter. The last round I hit my knees waaaay too many times. Morgan’s session was a cluster-truck. I didn’t do well on it. My arms were tired and my brain was more tired. I got through it, but it wasn’t work I’m particularly proud of. By the time we got into the weight room, my arms hated me. But soon, we were done.
Or so I thought.
We all gathered in the end zone — where we normally do our post workout stretch. But no, we did 100-yard sprints with a twist. We broke them up in 40-yard, 20-yard, and 40-yard segments. The 20-yard was where we did bear crawls, inchworms, crab walks (which I can’t do very well) and walking pushups.
Life is tough. It will throw physical and mental challenges at you. I hear people say that I’m crazy for working out like this in the morning. But overcoming the impossible is great practice for when life throws you a curve ball. Like this weekend for me. Like any day for all of us.
It’s more about become physically fit. It’s also about becoming mentally fit. It’s about working out your drive and your will.
Mine received a great workout today.