The snow was falling fast and provided me with one of the season’s few shoveling workouts. Both my neighbors were out and shoveling, as well, so I did mine quickly and went to help them to add to the effort…which still wasn’t much. With the snow still flying, I made my way to the park to see how much of the Survival Workout I could manage.
My parking spot hadn’t been plowed, so I went off Rogers Road and began the workout without some of my well-placed props. I cleared a spot in a snowy field next to my car as the wind whistled across a meadow blanketed in six inches of soft powder. The temperature was in the teens with a wind chill probably below zero. I had on a t-shirt and sweatshirt, gloves, hat and my boots and after squeezing out another 100 push-ups, felt plenty warm. It’s funny that it took so long to achieve 100 and now I’ve managed to hit it on four consecutive workouts. Three of those four I’ve done exactly 100…and couldn’t have done another no matter how I’d struggled.
I started across the open meadow, headed in the direction of my first rock pile about a half mile away, when I decided running would be a good idea. It wasn’t. In the heavy boots and with six inches of snow to plow through with each step, I managed about 90 seconds before succumbing to lungs ready to burst. I quickly figured this would be as good as…or better than…picnic table hops and probably safer on a day when they’d be icy and under plenty of snow.
My rocks…no longer sitting directly on the ground since I’d placed them on top of smaller rocks…were not frozen to the turf and quite usable. I managed my rows and overheads before moving on to a dip station. Along the way, I fit in some more sprint efforts…I had the sprint effect while moving more like the tortoise.
The wind was blowing hard even through the deep woods, so when I was forced to take off my gloves to gain a better grip on some rocks, they quickly began to become uncomfortably cold. I was getting a mild taste of what the Everest climbers experienced when they removed theirs for any reason…instant frost bite.
I put them back on quickly and kept them on until I reached the swing set, where I again removed them and climbed the pole. Big mistake. Though I made it to the top, my hands paid the price and were extremely cold after only one climb. Enough of that foolishness, I concluded and kept them on for the remainder of the workout.
Three more sprints through open fields really added a nice dimension to the workout. It’s kind of like running in a few inches of water…a little resistance goes a long way to increasing the effort. Though I couldn’t get in all of my lifts, I managed 18 different exercise episodes and turned a snowy day into another unique workout opportunity.
Survival Workout: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150.
Calories burned: 600.
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