I joined a new gym. I found it on kijiji. House of Sisyphus. “We train the body AND the mind.” That was all it said. Not much to go on really, but the price was right, FREE.
So I shot them an email. I got a reply from some guy named Bert Camu. Weird name. I think he might be European. His emails were weird. He said nothing about a gym, but instead rambled off a list of things I needed to get. Snowshoes. Rope. An old tire. A bucket. Luckily I had it all here already. He told me to “start to walking around yard pulling tire. Every day. Especially after it snows. Den adding weight to bucket. Den again.” Ok, I thought, must be some sort of tree-hugger CrossFit shit, but whatevs, I’ll give it a try. “How long do I pull it?” I asked him. “Until you feel to vomit.” he said. “Every day. When you arrive from your work.” So I did. Didn’t hear much from him. He would send one line emails, “you are doing tha pulling, yes?” I would respond, yes. When I told him that I had started to do the workouts in my street clothes that I wore to work – that I seemed to get some perverse pleasure in getting my work clothes all sweaty, he replied rather excitedly, “YES! YES! GOOD! GOOD!” Finally I got up the nerve to ask him if I was ready to level up, maybe move to the next routine. “No.” He said. “Dere is nudding else.” That seemed odd, but I thought maybe it was just a language thing, so I kept doing the workouts, and finding I was feeling better, happier. I‘m sure my neighbours are having a laugh. “There’s that guy again, pulling his tire. Doesn’t he know it’s just going to snow and he’ll have to do it all over again?” Truth is, if they asked me why I’m doing it, I don’t know that I could put any logical answer into words for them. Or that I care. As an added bonus, now when I take the dog out at night, I have a nice path all the way to the back of my yard, away from the house and the lights and I can stand and stare at every star in the sky. My last 3 emails to Bert have bounced back. His ad isn’t up on kijiji anymore. Weird. I didn’t imagine at first I’d be happy with such a simple exercise routine, but strangely enough I am. Just gotta roll with it I guess.