Ok so before I jump right in, I read these comics in high school, not long after they finished the series and it has stuck with me like few other pieces of literature. I love this fucking story. With that in mind it was a huge surprise for me to turn on my computer and discover that the TV adaptation has already started. After watching AMC’s first episode which aired last Sunday I have to say I’m a little concerned to be honest.
Look I’m not one of those purist fanboys, I’m one of the only people out there who genuinely thinks the ending to Watchmen was better in the film. More concise, less convoluted and essentially hits the exact same themes and message. So I’m not gonna pick apart every little change they’ve made – of which they have made many.
While I say that, I am slightly concerned that some of the changes could either have profound implications for some of my favourtie subplots or could even negate those subplots completely.
But more than any of that I’m concerned because structurally it’s not a great first episode, I’m trying to look at it objectively, through the eyes of someone unfamiliar with the story and I don’t really get anything that’ll hook me from this first episode.
The problem is that it is all expsoition, mostly exposition that didn’t exist in the book and largely seems unnecessary. Sure there’s a bit of intrigue inherent in some of this exposition but there really is no mind blowing event to grab the attention of a new audience. Nothing that makes one say, “Holy fuck, I gotta check out what happens next week.”
The thing is the comic series had shitloads of this, in the very beginning Custer’s entire congregation bursts into flame and Tulip and Cass find him in the rubble. They then find themselves on the run from the law. That’s a fucking hook. It’s also the catalyst for almost every force that is laid against them throughout the story. That’s how the Grail find him, that’s how the Saint of Killers finds him, that’s why Arseface starts chasing after him.
But it seems like this very important plot point has been negated, they can’t exactly burn the congregation when Tulip, Cassidy and Arseface are all sitting in there. And rather than this be the catalyst for the whole chase it appears the Grail have already tracked him down. They seem to have sanitised things a bit.
Now again I don’t necessarily see all this as bad, they may well come up with – as in the case of Watchmen – a more concise way of covering all these bases but it doesn’t bode well for my favourite subplots. Will we see Jesus De Sade and the gomorrhans? I doubt it.
But all thematic and plot concerns aside I worry that if even I, a man who has been chomping at the bit for years for a TV adaptation, finds himself watching this first episode and thinking “All right already, get bloody on with it.” what will a new audience think? Will they like I ask why nothing actually fucking happened in a highly anticipated first episode? Will this turn them off the series? Can the series survive on the backs of the diehard fanboys alone? Because I would hate for them to get Firefly’d.
One Punch Man, the anime/manga that took everyone by surprise by being the best thing of 2015.
For those unfamiliar (why are you even reading this, Mum?) our protagonist, Saitama, is a hero for fun but has become so powerful he can defeat any enemy with one punch, and as a result is kinda bored and exasperated. The secret to Saitama’s strength? He tells us. “100 push ups. 100 sit ups. 100 squats. Then a 10km run. Every single day.” So I thought I would investigate just how difficult this training regime is.
Now before I jump in some background on me. I am an ornery motherfucker. A 28 year old borderline alcoholic stoner. I’ve been drinking and smoking weed since I was 13, many would say to excess.
Name a drug and I’ve most likely over indulged in it at some point. I’m basically a pansexual deviant. I’ve shit my pants at various trashed times far more often than any adult human should. But above all I am lazy, just so fucking lazy.
The only exercise I get is rigging lights in my theatre work and I skateboard as my main mode of transport, and let’s be honest that’s mostly because I’m too lazy to walk and too cheap to use public transport. In year 12 my software design teacher gave me a joke award in recognition of my laziness it read “For proving that it is possible to be moderately successful whilst cruising through life and making no effort.” Shit I’m even lazy when it comes to my so-called hobbies, the things I supposedly enjoy the most, music and *nervous cough* writing.
So why am I, a self professed lazy trashbag putting myself through this? Well for one I thought it had potential to be funny, and I have no work booked for a few weeks so I need to keep busy lest I lose my mind agonising over the money I’m not earning that I definitely need. But the main reason is that Saitama is not so different from me. He is not particularly driven, he only became a hero for fun, and aside from his workout regime (which the other heroes scoff at) he is not particularly disciplined, he seems to spend most of his time lazing around at home reading manga.
Will forcing myself to do Saitama’s workout regime teach me the self discipline I’ve never had and make me a better person? Let’s find out together.
Day 1: Woke up at too early o’clock, punched a cone, went back to sleep. Bad start. My circadian lack of rhythm picked me back up around midday. Had some leftover pizza and a few more cones and then went to do some pre-production work for a production of Richard III I have coming up.
Skating home I was thinking about the workout regime I was yet to begin and I remembered that Saitama says to “Make sure you eat three meals a day, just a banana for breakfast is fine.” So I stopped at the supermarket to grab some groceries. Now as a man who exists almost exclusively on take away this is actually an achievement. This workout’s making me more responsible already and I haven’t actually started it.
Now getting home I got stuck into my groups of 100. It actually wasn’t too bad, the last 40 of each were tough but I got there. Pro tip: I incentivised myself by allowing myself a cone in between each set of 100. Now for the run…
I hate running, always have, so I end up lazing around the house getting progressively more stoned until about 8pm when I finally drag myself outta the house.
500 metres in and it starts pissing down but I think about what Saitama says about not using A/C as it will strengthen the mind, so I figure that must apply to rain and stuff too and press on.
At 1km I begin to remember why I hate running so much. The mind numbing monotony, good god this shit is boring, music helps, but not much. Seriously though how the fuck can anyone think this is fun?!
At 3km my cardiovascular system is crying out for vengeance and I conveniently find myself out front of The Bald Faced Stag where I make a brief beer sojourn.
At 5km I discovered the Orange Grove Hotel, never heard of it but it’s arrived at the perfect time, another quick pit stop and we’re off again.
At the 7km mark we find the Garry Owen hotel and a quick pick me up.
I skip the Red Lion because it’s only been 500m since the last pub, but also cause I really can’t afford to be making these pit stops.
Another 500m and I pass the Sackville, 500m more the Balmain. It’s as though the pubs are taunting me now. Mocking my aching body, my weak will and my pitiful financial situation.
With only 100m to go my right knee locks up but I push through until the annoying voice from the stupid running app interrupts my music for the tenth time.
Yes I even downloaded one of those stupid running apps
I can’t believe I actually did it. I stumble to the Ruby for a victory beer.
Arriving home I discover that in my haste to force myself out of the house I forgot to grab my keys so I am forced to struggle my way onto my neighbours roof and climb in my window. I drink another 6 pack, smoke a bunch of cones and crash out about 3.30am.
Main lesson for the day: I really should have stretched.
Day 2: My circadian chaos decides that 4 hours sleep is plenty so I wake at nope o’clock, punch a cone and go back to sleep again.
Resurface at 11, grab a banana, punch a cone and get stuck straight into my groups of 100. It is owwies, muscles are so fucking sore. I knock out 30 of each for now reasoning that Saitama never specified that it had to be done all in one go, although his syntax does sorta suggest that. But I have to get ready for a friend’s funeral so the rest’ll have to wait.
Just descending the stairs out of my apartment sucks and I’m definitely walking a bit gimpy.
I depart my friend’s wake pissed as all fuck, I investigate the maps and notice that Bondi Junction is almost exactly 10km from my house so in my funeral duds off I go.
Very soon I begin to suspect my shoes are ill fitted to this task. Now my reasoning for going the rest of the way barefoot may require some explanation. See in high school I rarely used to wear shoes and as a result the soles of my feet were hard as stone however since moving to the city my feet have become spongy and weak. A fact I somewhat lament. So I give myself a side mission, maybe by doing my runs barefoot I can regain their former stony glory. This was a bad decision. My feet blister and blood blister severely.
I had thought that maybe being pissed would make this whole ordeal more bearable. I was again wrong. I am so much more bitter about it. Why the fuck am I subjecting myself to such torment?
At 8km I stop at the Pyrmont Bridge Hotel, this was a great idea last night. Tonight not so much, restarting the journey is agonising. Why the fuck am I doing this? What the fuck am I hoping to achieve? Will this even make an interesting article? Kill me now. It would be impossible to count the amount of times I opened up my uber app and then closed it and berated myself for being weak. But I make it, somehow.
I arrive home and proceed to drink more with my housemate and his girlfriend. They go to bed around 10pm and as I retire to my room I realise I still have 70 push ups, sit ups and squats to do. Fuck.
By the time I’ve done 50 push ups my triceps feel like they want to tear themselves from my arms. But I refused myself a cone until I finished. This incentive system works great.
At around the 50 mark in my sit ups I find myself uncontrollably laughing at just how much I hate this. But again I force myself to finish and reward myself with a cone.
Just as I’m about to reach the end of my squats I drop a fart that smells worse than anything I’ve ever smelled, it’s like a dead body filled with sulfur slowly roasting over smouldering turds. This thing just fucking lingers too, it was thick, like swimming through butter. Not sure if I can blame this on the workout but I’m going to anyway.
I don’t think I’ve ever been so thankful to finish something.
Today’s lesson: Don’t assign yourself new missions when you’re already struggling with a herculean challenge, you’ll just end up with blistery feet (metaphorically speaking).
Day 3: Once again I awake at stupid o’clock, but this time it’s because a child is making a sound something like a cat being slowly fed into a wood chipper right outside my window. I am furiously hungover and that caterwauling little beast is lucky my body is in so much pain right now because otherwise I may well have jumped out my second story window right onto his little screaming face. I punch a few cones while I wait for the little cacophony to shut the fuck up and about 20mins later he finally goes away and I am allowed to go back to sleep.
I wake again aroung midday but there is no fucking way I’m getting stuck straight into this shit. I just can’t fathom it right now. So I proceed to smoke myself into a stupor and play video games.
Finally after losing like 10 Rocket League games in a row I get stuck into my 100s. It has become agonisingly difficult. By 70 push ups all I can think is “Fuck you” over and over. Not sure if I was directing this at myself, Saitama, or the universe in general. But to quote Saitama “I kept doing squats even when my legs were so heavy they refused to move. Even when my arms started making weird clicking noises, I kept doing push ups.” The clicking is rather disturbing though.
Having knocked the groups of 100 out the 10km run was hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles and having smoked my last cone as a reward for finishing I decided to walk up the street to grab a goon bag. Yes I’m that poor right now but there is no way I’m doing this run sober, that would suck just way too much.
To clarify for any international readers who may be unaware the goon bag is a mainstay of Australian culture, 4 litres (or in this case 5) of cheap crappy wine, sold in a box which contains a glorious silver bladder, which makes an excellent pillow when you reinflate the empty. And yes, I recognise I could have just said boxed wine and most of the world would understand that, but once you have lived la vida goona, it can have no other name.
We meet again my terrific/terrible friend.
So I spent the next few hours getting myself sufficiently intoxicated to attempt the 10km and during this time I noticed that my already usually voracious appettite had shifted gears and gone next level. I am rapidly burning through all the supplies I bought on day one. My stomach cannot be filled. It was at this point I discovered a half tub of ice cream I’d completely forgotten I had bought when I was wasted and for some reason wanted ice cream.
I have never dreaded anything so much as I dread this 10km run. Not the time I had to catch 2 hour train to a 15 hour shift working on the fucking x factor while I was still tripping absolute balls. Not the time my mate said he wanted to jizz in this chicks mouth and I said “If she lets you do that I’ll eat my hat”, then 2 weeks later was presented with the evidence required to demand said hat eating. Not the time I had to go to high school while I was still seeing and talking to people who were not there after a few of us had eaten a bunch of datura on the weekend. Nothing compares to the dread with which I face this run.
I force myself out at about 10pm. I feel like Sisyphus. My self imposed torment haunts me. “Why?!” I ask of myself and the universe a thousand times.
Loads of goon and ice cream was a bad idea. About 1km in I begin to feel nauseous as fuck. Many times during this run I considered throwing myself from the nearest high object to make the pain end, but there was nothing really tall enough to ensure I would die. And besides it would be rather silly to kill myself over a self imposed torment.
At about 4km my nausea began to fade away and the goon still had enough effect that my music was slightly more distracting than it otherwise would have been. This made me think maybe I’d gotten the elusive second wind and so I started really pushing myself. I even put on the One Punch Man theme song just to make the moment extra cheesy.
Before the song even finished I felt like I was going to cough up a lung.
At 7km a big beautiful wind picks up and despite being an avowed skeptic I’m gonna chalk it up to the sheer force of my hatred for this activity actually changing the weather.
A trip and fall on a raised paving slab hurts way more and for way longer than it should have, and believe me as a man who skates everywhere, including when I’m drunk as hell, I know how much hitting the pavement should hurt.
I make it home and discover that I was actually 20mins faster than last night. Whatdya fuckin know? Still 30mins slower than day one but still, it’s something.
WOO! Self improvement, yeah!
It starts raining as I step through the door and I’m not sure whether to be thankful or resentful, cause yeah that may have been nice and refreshing but also… actually yeah why the fuck couldn’t that have started an hour ago?
Lesson for the day: There is nothing goon cannot improve.
Day 4: Today was mostly composed of typing up days 1 -3, while drinking goon. Once I’d finished publishing the beginnings of this little adventure I decided to go get on.
If you’re wondering how I have the money for weed after I’ve spent the last 3 days whinging about how poor I am, it’s because that money was already designated for weed, for all intents and purposes it never really existed. It merely represented the potential for weed. Also I’m and addict, it’s what we do.
I arrive at the station near my dealer’s house and find a police with a drug dog. Suckers, if you’d found me on my way home I’d be screwed. The dog gives a false positive and I’m searched anyway, confirming that this is a massive waste of taxpayer money.
So with the police presence in mind I decide I may as well run home. It still really sucks but I must say having an objective, somewhere I actually want to get to rather than just running a stupid pointless fucking loop, is really helpful.
Once again at the 3km mark I find myself at the Bald Faced Stag, so I again ignore the voice that says “Save your money dickhead.” I stop for a beer if only for thematic symmetry.
At 6km I notice I’m almost home and decided that since I split my 100s up on day 2 I can split my run up today. Also I’ve got a fresh bag of weed in my pocket calling my name. And I’ve still got about 5hrs left in the day to knock it out.
Arriving home to discover I’ve locked myself out again. I get about half way up the fence when I realise I’m basically climbing straight through a Saint Andrew’s Cross spider web. While not really dangerous this does cause a slight crash off the fence while I slap the creepy little bastard off me.
Just so creepy lookin.
Second attempt gets me into the house. Time to eat, smoke and drink and indulge in being the lazy shit I am for a few hours.
I finally muster up the effort to get stuck back in. Holy shit the push ups are fucking super difficult today. The sit ups are similarly nigh impossible. The squats are substantially easier, I attribute this to the theatre I’ve worked in the last 3 years having a stupid fucking catwalk with only about 4 feet of clearance above your head. I am quite used to squatting.
After these groups of 100 it is becoming way more difficult to psych myself up for the rest of this run. It’s not until nearly 11pm that I finally force myself out the door. Descending stairs has become the worst.
For the last 3.5km I decide on a park that I did a few laps of last night, because running on the grass is infinitely more forgiving. While running on the nice soft cushy grass I decide to try to draw a spiral with the gps on the running app. This unfortunately only takes about 1.5km and I don’t wanna mess up my spiral so I am forced to leave the nice cushy grass for new pastures.
At 9km I find myself in the little tiny park right near my house. I also find a severe goon related heartburn/acid reflux/just plain holding back vomit. I decide to try to draw a little zig zag in this park, but it doesn’t come out very well.
Granted the spiral isn’t that good either.
10km almost exactly back on my doorstep. God I hate this.
Today’s lesson: Look out for spiders before you go climbing shit.
Day 5: Woke up today not feeling nearly as painy as the last few days, but I do just feel plain old tired as fuck all day.
Actually did something useful today and had a meeting with a guy to operate a show at the Old Fitz for the next couple weeks.
So if you’re in Sydney you should come check out some good local theatre. Particularly because it’s a profit share production so the more of you who come see it the less I’ll get underpaid.
Anyway, the rest of my day was super fuckin lazy. Being nearby I stopped over to visit a friend at her theatre. We intended to do some playing with some old lighting desks the theatre had been given, but that plan quickly fell through. We later retired to her place to eat, smoke and drink wine. I did manage to do something responsible. I went and bought some cheap shitty Kmart joggers, because my only pair of shoes are woefully ill suited to running.
Fly as fuck, but woefully ill suited.
Just as I was planning to leave and actually come and do my workout Double Team comes on the TV. This movie is fucking fantastic, I become so engrossed in Van Damme and Dennis Rodman’s glorious testament to 90’s action film making that I don’t leave her house until about 11.30pm.
I was just enraptured by Rodman’s ever changing hair.
So seeing as it’s practially midnight and I haven’t even started my workout yet that means I’ve failed right? Wrong. See I’m choosing to use the justification that since it hasn’t yet been 24hrs since I went to sleep last night/this morning, it’s still my day.
So I begin the run home from Ashfield, and I really am not in as much pain as I was yesterday, maybe my body is adjusting already. Or maybe it’s just the new running shoes. They really do make all the difference though, feels like I’m just bouncing along. With less muscular pain that the last few nights I’m actually able to get to a pace where my cardiovascular system butts in and announces “Fuck you!”
Then at 6km my legs become heavier than they’ve ever felt. It reminds me of a recurring them I have in dreams where my legs will become ridiculously heavy, usually when I need them most in the context of any given dream. And when I say heavy I mean like black hole stuck to the sole of your feet heavy. That’s what my legs feel like in real life right now. I’m literally living my worst nightmare.
I make it home faced with the prospect of my 100s still to do.
Again I’m noticing less muscular pain while I do my push ups, they’re still tough but not nearly as bad as yesterday. Although my lower abs are kicking my arse. So much so that I broke my “no cone til you finish 100” incentive at 50 sit ups. Cause fuck it.
After finishing the rest of the sit ups I am overcome by dizziness, I dunno if it’s drunkenness or tiredness or both. And it’s not like a fleeting “I spun around too many times” dizzy, more like a I feel like I could faint any second kinda dizzy that last about 10mins.
I shake it off and get into the squats. They are harder than they’ve ever been. It’s like the exact opposite to last night where the push and sit ups were way harder than the squats. My legs feel like they want to split off at the hips and run for freedom.
Lesson for the day: Running shoes are a good thing.
Day 6: Began the day by typing up days 4 & 5 then decided to get stuck in early. Some of my friends who understand fitnessy type stuff a lot better than I have expressed concern that going from zero to Saitama without working up to it could lead me to injure myself so I thought I’d go get a second opinion.
I start my run to one of the local gyms. My legs are still really heavy, this is probably the slowest going I’ve dealt with. Once I arrived at the gym I asked if one of their PT’s had a minute to answer a couple questions. A trainer named Mary agrees to answer my questons.
I ask if there is a danger of hurting myself to which she responded “Well of course whenever you’re really pushing yourself there’s a chance something will give but as long as you’re eating properly and preparing yourself, ya know stretching, warming up, you should be fine.”
Next I ask about another issue that’s been raised, the fact that I shouldn’t be filling my body with booze and such while putting it under so much stress. She had this to say “Obviously I wouldn’t recommend it but again as long as you are otherwise looking after yourself I shouldn’t think it’d do any major harm, it’ll just hinder your progress.”
Then she asked me a question. “What are you hoping to get out of this? Cause if as you were saying it’s really just an experiment to see if you can do it I’d say well anything can be done but without specific goals it really won’t do much for you except make you better at doing push ups, sit ups, squats and 10km runs.”
Leaving the gym I suddenly noticed I’m fucking starving, circled round to the supermarket to grab a few more supplies then immediately remembered why I don’t go to that supermarket. It’s too damn expensive. But I grab a cheap frozen pizza for lunch and head home to eat.
After lunch I got comfy and stoned and ended up playing Vermintide for about 5 hours. Finally I quit out and got stuck into my push ups. My abs are causing major issues with today’s sets.
Time for my run. My run on day 4 gave me an idea I wanted to test out tonight. Gps drawing. I run down to the little park down the road and proceed to attempt to draw a classic. Something every man has drawn at one time or another. It didn’t turn out great. The gps on the running app is a bit laggy, and so you find yourself in the wrong place a lot and even when you are in the right place it sometimes just refuses to draw a straight line. Or sometimes it lags and just skips a whole area to draw a straight line between where you were and where you are when it finally decides to update.
You can probably still guess what I was trying for.
Man fuck this running shit. If I can’t even use it to manipulate satellites into drawing dicks then what bloody good is it?
I notice some nearby streets configured in such a way that might enable me to express my frustration. But again its refusal to draw straight lines muddies the end result some.
Had to sneak through someone’s yard to get the final line on the thumb.
Lesson for the day: I think I need a bigger canvas to allow the gps to catch up if I’m to complete my masterpiece.
Day 7: I’m just gonna come out and say it. I’ve failed.
So I slept til crazy late and I awake into that familiar state of extreme self loathing. It tends to happen more often when I’m really poor. However when I get up to grab breakfast I notice that I have almost no pain and no hobblyness. Maybe my body is starting to adjust. This thought picks me up a little bit the levity is short lived.
I get stuck straight into the push ups to distract myself. They are a lot easier today but my abs still give me a bit of trouble. Sit ups are still really hard.
While doing my workout I have my youtube favourites just cycling through and I begin to notice a pattern. “Oh yeah Laneway’s on today and a bunch of these bands are playing.” I think. I’ve snuck into Laneway a few times in the past, I know the festival site like the back of my hand. So I decide to start my run in that direction. I jog the perimeter and check if the old security holes are open. Some are but my old sure bets are locked down. I end up psyching myself out.
See last year I actually had a ticket but I got kicked out for being too pissed. This pissed me off because a) I wasn’t even that drunk, just had the ol’ beer eyes on and b) I hadn’t gotten to see Flying Lotus yet. So I snuck back in and got to see Flylo but as everyone is leaving one of the security who kicked me out recognises me, tackles me and drags me to the cops who fined me $550.
I really don’t need another $550 fine right now and besides I looked at the timetable and by this point there’s only like 2 bands left I wanna see. Not worth the risk. “God when did I become such a coward?” I think. I recognise that most people would say I should be happy that I’m being more responsible but I’m still feeling generally down on myself and besides it’s not really true, I’m just scared of what I might do to myself should I prove myself to be a complete fuck up again.
So I begin trudging home, reflecting on my many and varied miscellaneous fuck ups. This eventually gets the better of me and I find myself at the bottle-o with a fresh box of goon.
Then I proceeded to drink myself into a coma.
I did not complete my 10 kilometres.
Today’s lesson: Mental illness can fuck anything up.
Saitama Workout Do Over – Day 1
Ok, sorry I’ve been a little slack, I took 2 days off after my failure on Day 7. I wanted to rest up and start again fresh. I also was thinking about what Mary the PT had said about having goals, but I’m still struggling to figure out exactly why I’m doing this to myself. And finally I was teching Alpha at the Old Fitz, and this takes up a lot of time and focus and energy. Also I’m fucking lazy, I feel we’ve covered this.
Day 1 (again): This week should be interesting from a completely different viewpoint to last week. During my 2 days off I exhausted the rest of my booze and weed, and I have absolutely no money left with which to replenish them. So we’ll see how this little experiment goes when I’m sober.
Resting for 2 days was great, I’m so refreshed I smash out my push ups and sit ups in no time. I dunno if it’s the rest but my kness are making crunchy sounds worse than ever while doing the squats. I definitely haven’t gained any motivation though, actually doing the exercises is still about as appealing as a shit sandwich.
After finishing my squats I totally wasted the rest of the day, figured I can run over to the Old Fitz for my show, but with the show starting at 10.15pm I had a good 6 hours to kill before then. Spent it playing video games. Yep definitely no change in motivation.
8.30pm and I begin my run, I still fucking hate it. Not even 1km in and I’m already cursing myself and the universe. Part of me did slightly think that being sober might be beneficial to this endeavour. I was wrong, it sucks so fucking bad, this clarity of thought and awareness just makes me all the more aware of how fucked this running bullshit is. I used to look at those teetotalling fitness buffs and be envious of their self control and discipline, now I just pity the fools. Poor motherfuckers, torturing themselves for some arbitrary self image without even the warm embrace of whiskey to numb the pain.
Seriously though, someone buy me some whiskey.
When I hit Hyde Park I decide to try my gps art game again. This time I thought I’d try it without looking at the screen the whole time because I feel like watching the thing lag and draw lines where I’m not threw me off more than it helped. This was perhaps misguided, while simply using the structure of the park to guide me did kinda work, the stupid app still won’t fucking draw straight and it still refuses to draw some lines. When I got back to the fountain and checked the result I was sorely disappointed, so I carried on my way. I’m beginning to think that the only way the stupid app will be able to keep up is to walk it.
It wouldn’t even draw the pee-hole, even though I ran back and forth 4 times to make sure it was there.
This pisses me off so badly, although it does give me one of the ever elusive goals that Mary had spoken of. I will make this app draw a massive cock if it’s the last thing I do. Also this little game is about the only thing that can make these runs even slightly bearable.
Opening night of Alpha goes off without a hitch, and I discover $5 in my shorts. Now I realise I really should have saved this and bought some more survival rations but because I’m working on the show I get 50% off beers in the Old Fitz. So obviously that’s what I spent it on.
Lesson for the day: Sobriety is really not all it’s cracked up to be.
Day 2: I awoke rather late today and as I had plans I got stuck straight into my sets of 100. Still feeling pretty good today so I smashed out the push ups, the sit ups were slightly more difficult today but not too bad, squats are still the easiest.
Immediately after finishing it’s time to head over to the Erskineville Hotel. My friend is leaving her position at her theatre and moving on to greener pastures, and this afternoon we’re having a farewell party. So I strap on my running shoes and hit the road.
Almost as soon as I start I realise I do not have the stamina for this shit today. I’m familiar with this particular lethargy, it’s the old working too much and not eating enough kind. See I’ve been rationing pretty hard the last few days. Luckily I have a deeply ingrained stubborn refusal to accept my own weakness. I once went surfing one week after breaking my collarbone because the surf was cranking and I wasn’t gonna let a completely snapped through clavicle get in my way.
My stubborness carries me to Wentworth park where I’m inspired that the light rail bridge may give me a good template for drawing on. However there’s no time for drawing dicks today, there’s free beer calling my name. Free beer! So much for a week of sobriety.
Fuck your “cellar door.” This is the most beautiful combination of words in the english language.
7km gets me to the Erko, and we proceed to drink and laugh and make merry. We get a bit sloshed and eventually I realise if I don’t leave immediately I’m gonna be late for my show. I make a quick run to the train station and get my arse over there just in time, unfortunately there’s no audience tonight so the show gets called off anyway.
After leaving the Old Fitz I open my running app to finish my 10km but even while it was on pause it continued to count, it says I’ve done 14km. Stupid, stupid fucking app, first you can’t draw straight now you won’t pause when I tell you to. I knock out my last three anyway and head home.
Oh so you’ll draw straight lines when you’re paused and I don’t want you drawing at all but when I try to draw a dick you’re all over the place.
By the time I get home I am beyond starving but I ate the last of my rations this morning. Luckily I’ve been saving a free loyalty meal from one of the local kebab places on menulog. Yes! Free pide! Not quite as beautiful as free beer but awesome nonetheless.
Today’s Lesson: Never let being completely broke get in the way of getting drunk.
Day 3: I didn’t think I got that drunk last night but I woke up this morning with a furious hangover, but there’s no time to wallow in self pity, gotta get to a production meeting. Could have done my run on the way to the meeting but I feel like absolute shit so that’ll have to wait.
After my meeting I get home planning to take a nap, but then a friend calls and tells me to come round her place, she’s going to dinner with her mum and tells me to come along for a free dinner. Can’t say no to a free dinner.
So I hit the road. Holy fuck it is way too hot for this shit today. I have become more sweat than man. I wish I had a stillsuit. My lungs are really not appreciating this today either. I’m gonna assume this is because I smoked like a chimney last night.
I have found a positive to take away from this hell though. In the past I never would have never even considered walking from my house to Ashfield but now that I’ve forced myself to run it the distance doesn’t seem so daunting.
About 1km from my destination I find myself at a 7/11. Slurpee for the win! “Oh my god this slurpee is too fucking gooAAAAGGGHHH.” I got over excited and gave myself the worst brain freeze I’ve ever had. Even worse than when my mates and I would play Masochistic Slurpee Race in high school.
The pain and tightness in my right knee is starting to come back, I’ll have to keep an eye on that.
So I arrive at my friends place and we proceed to drink beer and smoke. We go to dinner where her mum (who is a nurse) tells me “Yes, I’ve heard about your idiotic regime and we’re not even going to talk about it.” Not sure if I should be concerned about that.
Then it’s time to head into the theatre. After the show we have a few more beers and then heading home I remember I’ve still got a couple of kilometres left to run, but getting drunk and stoned has caused me to completely forget about the running app still going in my pocket. It apparently drains your battery really quick so the phone dies about halfway home.
So now it thinks I did 19km in 19hrs.
When I get home I chop up a bit of bud that my mate gave me, get good and baked and am about to fall asleep when I remember I haven’t done my push ups and such yet. It’s still not agonising but it is definitely getting difficult again. Or I guess that could be that my body is already half asleep.
Today’s lesson: Never turn down a free dinner.
Day 4: Woke up super late again, all the soreness and bodily exhaustion is coming back in force. So though I had planned to do some shit today I instead chose to get baked and play video games for about 7hrs. Guess the whole sobriety week idea’s out the window.
I entered into this with some vague inkling that maybe forcing myself to exercise would in some way give me more motivation, instead I am robbed all motivation and simply sit around dreading doing the stupid exercise.
After a few rounds of Rocket League, a handful of Counter Strike, an extended run on Vermintide and a quick bash at Faster Than Light I find it’s getting late and I need to do this shit before I head to work.
The push ups and sit ups are really starting to get difficult now, many pains. No time for squats though I’ve gotta hit the road if I’m gonna make the theatre in time.
To begin with my knee’s feeling a lot better than it was yesterday but for the first kilometre or so my ankles are giving me mad trouble, but they loosen up eventually and all is well. Until my knee starts to seize up again worse than ever. I’m beginning to have serious concerns about this.
My lungs are still not happy either. Every kilometre or so that I run my lungs start to feel like I’ve been incubating an alien.
Exactly how it feels.
I stopped in Hyde Park to try again at a little bit of gps drawing. My results tonight are far more satisfactory. I even used the weird straight line thing it does when you pause the app to my advantage to draw a nice straight shaft.
His right ball came out a bit shrivelled but it’s by far the best yet.
A few drinks with the cast after the show and I head home to once again get baked as fuck. The same thing happens as last night, it’s not until I’m just about asleep I remember I haven’t done the squats. Luckily the squats still are by far the easiest part of this workout. The pain in my knee from running is much less prohibitive than I thought it’d be. Still making lots of crunchy noises though.
Lesson for the day: Perserverance is the key to a well drawn dick.
Day 5: Woke up this morning to a message from a mate asking if I wanna go see Deadpool, luckily this partuclar mate still owes me some cash so he spots me the ticket.
I was gonna run to the cinema but as soon as I go to leave the apartment my knee is already giving me trouble, if it were just today I would have just forced myself to run through the pain but this is becoming a consistent problem so in the interests of not permamently destroying my knee for the sake of a stupid joke article I choose to skate it instead. I recognise this is kinda cheating but hear me out.
The skate to the cinema takes me 4km.
Deadpool is terrific, if you haven’t seen it yet go check it out. It’s no cinematic masterpiece but it’s not trying to be and it achieves what it is trying for perfectly.
Then I have to jet straight from the cinema to the theatre. This gives me another 4.6km.
Finally after my show I skate home, a further 9.2km.
So with almost 18km skated today I’m gonna claim that as equivalent to my 10km run, with the added bonus of it not feeling like I’m giving myself arthritis.
I again nearly completely forget about my push ups etc, but they’re getting really easy these days, I’ve taken to smashing them out in sets of 20 instead of 10.
Today’s lesson: I am not willing to destroy my knee for this.
Day 6: Today I awoke with a burning desire to hit the beach. Partly because I love the beach and partly because my knee is still giving me trouble and I think swimming may be the answer. So I message a friend who has just moved to Clovelly, like 2 minutes walk from the beach. I jump a bus to Coogee and skate it from there.
We swim for a couple of hours, which I am gonna claim is my running equivalent for the day. I figure it usually takes me about an hour and a bit to run my 10km, so a couple hours swimming must be an equal workout. In fact this swim was more exhausting and felt like a more complete workout than any of the runs have.
To add some more workout to the day we decide to follow the headlands around from Clovelly to Coogee. This requires a lot of rock climbing and agile leaping from rock to rock. “Bad decision.” the old knee is telling me.
We arrive at Coogee, swim for another half hour and then adjourn to my mates house where we proceed to drink and drink and drink.
I am already absolutely hammered by the time I remember I still have to do my push ups, sit ups and squats. But these are super easy because I’m fucking wasted and no longer feel pain.
Later we smoke some shabs and fuck for hours.
If all this combined exercise doesn’t count as equivalent to a 10km run then I dunno what does.
Lesson: Swimming is at least a thousand times better than stupid fucking running.
Day 7: Good god, I have the most furious fucking hangover. But I’ve gotta get ready for a job interview today. Luckily it’s not until 4pm. So I spend the day in bed nursing my pain. Then a little before it’s time to go I finally get up and force myself to do my 100s.
God damn, I must have really worked myself hard yesterday. The push ups have become difficult again, I even have to stop half way through a set to go for a quick spew. The sit ups are super painful, but that’s mostly pain in my lower back, presumably caused by the fact that I did them on tiles last night at my mates place. Squats are still pretty easy though.
Time to head for my interview. My knee is still really not happy so I skate to Erskineville. The interview goes fairly well I think, considering my head is still a blurry mess. I skate back home and take a nap.
I awake, having slept through my alarm, with only just enough time to get to the theatre. I jump back on the skateboard and boogie over there as fast I can. Perhaps it’s the intense pace but on this journey I’m beginning to think the skating is not much better for my knee than the running is.
I would have thought that semi-resting my knee a few days would have helped it calm down a bit, but then I have the thought that I have been rationing pretty intensely the last few days. Perhaps my food intake has been insufficient for my body to actually repair itself properly.
Finally I take the skate home, it’s slow going because by this point the combined hangover/lack of sleep/physical exhaustion is really getting the better of me.
Today’s lesson: I really need to be eating properly for this shit. Poverty sucks.
Day 8: I’m still completely fucking exhausted today. I didn’t really get much sleep because I’ve gotta get up early for a full day at Carriageworks. I know I said that eating proper was a big thing yesterday but I woke up late so there’s no time for breakfast today.
I skate to work and thank god my knee is starting to feel back to it’s old self.
This faith in my body’s healing powers was misplaced. By the time I knock off work my knee is killing me again. Really beginning to think I’ve proper fucked it. But I skate home anyway because I’m still stubborn enough that I will at least force this much out of myself.
When I arrive home I am absolutely starving. And with my revelation yesterday that I need to eat more in order to survive this shit I begin completely devouring my way through my survival rations. I must have eaten the equivalent of a weeks rations in about 2 hours but god does it feel good.
After gorging myself I jump on the skateboard and head for the theatre.
But by the end of the show I am completely knackered and take the lazy option of a bus home. I still managed a total of 18km today so I’m counting it.
Once again I’ve foolishly left my 100s til bedtime, I really think I need to force myself to do these first thing in the day because doing it at the end fucking blows.
Lesson for the day: Food is one of life’s greatest pleasures and like sex is appreciated the most when you’ve not been getting it.
Day 9: I think I was right about the whole not eating properly causing my knee to stay fucked. After gorging yesterday it finally feels a lot better.
I slept in late and was awoken by my phone ringing. It was a call to inform me that I’d landed the job I interviewed for the other day. That’s right I’m a brand new Venue manager.
To reward myself I scrap all plans for the day and decide I’m finally gonna get around to playing Half Life 2. See I never got to finish it when it came out because I had to overclock my computer to play it and I didn’t add enough extra cooling. Needless to say my computer fucking melted.
I got well sucked in, this game holds up terrifically. It’s quite refreshing going back to that old style of game design where it doesn’t tell you much at all, just expects you to figure it out and because of clever level design you are able to organically learn the mechanics that allow you to progress.
So before I know it it’s time to head to the Old Fitz for my show. I go to grab a feed before I leave and remember that I ate everything last night.
With my knee feeling significantly better I decide I’ll go back to running it. It’s even more horrbile than I remember. I know I’ve said this a number of times but seriously why the fuck is this a thing? I mean if you’ve gotta run cause you’re gonna miss the bus, or the police are on your arse, then fine run. If it’s the latter run your arse off because I can say from experience that the NSW police force are not friendly motherfuckers.
But running for the sake of running? Get fucked.
From a cardio point of view I feel a bit better. While I likened the pain a few days ago to an alien chestburster today it’s merely a sort of Kali Ma pain.
I’m gonna take this mild improvement as validation that skating 20km the last couple days was indeed just as good a workout as running 10km.
When I reach Hyde Park I try to think of some image I can draw to express my disdain for this activity. However all I’m drawing is a massive blank so I decide to spell it out instead.
The longer you look at it the less it looks like a word, but if you just glance at it you get it loud and clear.
After arriving home I realise I’ve gone and done it again. I’ve left my push ups etc til the last minute. They’ve gotten significantly more difficult today too. Can’t quite figure why when the last few days they’ve only been getting easier.
Today’s lesson: I should’ve paid more attention in school when they were teaching us cursive.
Day 10: Holy shit I slept badly, I just wanna lay in bed all day but I’ve gotta head over to my new theatre and sort out some stuff for my new job. It’s way too hot and I’m way too tired to be running at this point so I think “Fuck it.” and catch the bus.
When I arrive home I do that old thing where you look in the fridge and pantry, even when you know there’s nothing there. But there is something there, at the back of the pantry I discover some old instant miso soup I completely forgot I’d bought. My god it’s just so fucking good. Miso soup is like soul cleansing, it just feels fantastic, even this instant stuff.
My housemate’s family dog is staying with us for a couple of days so I spend most of the afternoon playing with him.
I decided to leave for the theatre a bit early so I can hit the homeless food van at the domain. Used to do it all the time when I first moved to Sydney and tended to spend all my money on booze and drugs. I may not be homeless but I am starving and the people making the food don’t care who you are, they just wanna give food to hungry people.
Once again I’ve foolishly left my 100s until bedtime and this time I am super weak, probably because I’ve only had 1 meal and some miso soup the last 2 days.
Lesson: Miso. Get it into ya.
Day 11: Gotta get up early for work. I know I’ve got a full day ahead so I do the run there even though it’s the absolute last thing I wanna do at this ungodly hour. Fuck me there are a lot of people out running at stupid o’clock. Why the fuck would you force yourself out of bed at 7am to go for a run. Idiots.
I get to work and holy shit yes this mob have brought catering. Croissants and danishes for brekky and Vietnamese for lunch, at the end of the day the production manager is even giving me beers.
We finish later than expected, so I do a mad dash to the Old Fitz, just making it on time for my gig.
It’s closing night tonight so after we bump out we have a number of pints and eventually I begin skating home. On the way I’m nearly run over by a guy who must have been doing 160km/hr around Pyrmont. I had to bail off my board to avoid him and in doing so I’m pretty sure I’ve broken a metatarsil(foot bone). How can I tell? Because I’ve broken a metacarpal(hand bone) and it feels a lot like that. I manage to hobble the rest of the way home in absolute agony. The great experiment is over.
Addendum: Yep I did break my second metatarsil. And 4th. The doctors are concerned mostly about the break on the second though.
It’s not a great photo because I was on lot’s of painkillers but you can sorta see the fracture.
The orthopaedists are concerned that it’s right next to a crucial ligament that keeps the arch in your foot from collapsing. They call it a lisfranc fracture after someone from the napoleonic wars, apparently it was common among cavalrymen, when their feet got caught in the stirrups. So they took me into surgery put me under and jammed some screws in there to keep it all together like a dodgy set piece in a no-budget production.
So with this endeavour brought to an unexpected and painful end, what have I learnt? Well for one just forcing yourself to exercise does in no way translate to an increase in motivation in general. I’m probably overly willing to torture myself for a cheap laugh. And I guess the main lesson is running fucking sucks arse.
It’s not a great photo because I was on lot’s of painkillers but you can sorta see the fracture.
Obscenity 'n' Shit 