It was some of the worst news I have ever received in an email. I slumped back in my seat, swallowed hard and contemplated crying.
“You did this,” I scolded myself. “You have no one to blame but yourself.”
How could I have been such a fool?
“Howdy,” the email started out. I should have sensed right then it was bad. I should have Googled “cheap cave for sale Arkansas” and then gone into hiding like a hermit. I should have clicked “delete” straight away.
But instead I read on: “Well, school is about to begin yet again and that means we only have 12 weeks from yesterday until TOUGH MUDDER.”
AHHHHH!
It was the dude at the college who “recruited” me for a team to take on a Tough Mudder — a masochistic series of physical obstacles spread across a muddy 10-mile course. One of those obstacles involves electrified wires dangling down. When you read up on a Tough Mudder, you notice startling similarities to Dante’s nine circles of the underworld. Unfortunately, you don’t notice these similarities until after you paid the non-refundable entry fee.
I agreed to it months ago, and only because I was certain a giant comet was going to strike the Earth. I figured it would postpone the Tough Mudder for at least a couple weeks. That would give me time to come up with a proper excuse to get out of it: “Man, I’m on comet cleanup duty. Bummer!”
Still no comet! (Stupid doomsday nitwits getting my hopes up.)
Tough Mudder still on.
Now team organizer dude is sending me “Howdy” emails.
He wants to know how the training is going. Training! We’re supposed to train for this?!? Nobody mentioned anything about that. And with only 12 weeks to go.
This all came the same week I realized I had reached my peak of summer un-fitness — that time of the year when snails have covered more miles than me. When use of my normal belt notch causes tectonic internal organ shifting. Thanks summer beer and ice cream!
I have a lot of work to do in 12 weeks. So now I’m Googling things like “how to wake moron up for early morning exercise” or “stupid signed up for Tough Mudder now what?”
It keeps pointing me to sites that always say the same thing, “So, you got drunk and signed up for a Tough Mudder. Well, at least it wasn’t a tattoo of Big Bird.”
Most of these are pretty hardcore exercise sites with hardcore suggestions for early morning exercise motivation. Like: Sleep with a rattlesnake by your bed. Pretend you’re Genghis Khan and that it’s time to conquer China. Get up when your alarm clock goes off.
But none of these are helping me.
So, here I am with twelve weeks to go. There’s no comet on the horizon. I can’t Google my way out of this one. Got to get my regular belt notch back and do some pushups. No one to blame but myself. No affordable Arkansas caves to hide in. Time to stop crying and start training. For I am Genghis Khan invading the underworld!