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| Group Plank |
Weekends, the time when we get out and enjoy those long workouts, we meet up with training partners, training teams, and we get out and do something. For me, once every three weekends for five months of the year, I sit and spend the weekend on duty. As a dorm supervisor part of my job is weekend duty. Which involves being present in the dorm and checking on kids in the dorm all day, yes there is the random trip to the store or such but for the most part it is about sitting around and being present. As this is the first year that I have actually wanted to be active during these weekends and coincidentally am not coaching both days of the weekend, I need to get creative with my workouts.
If you receive the Spartan Race WOD’s you will recognize this one from a couple days ago and a conversation with Carrie Adams, while she was trying to come up with the next day’s WOD. I told her of my idea of a massive amount of planking, well thats an exaggeration but a far amount of planking. If you do not receive the email, here is a refresher of the WOD. Simple, each hour on the hour you are awake do a two minute plank. I added if two minutes is too easy then bump it up to 5 minutes. I didn’t have to even leave the entry area of the school to get it done and had no idea how hard it would be. Carrie loved it and some of you may have already done this WOD. But today I decided to try out my Saturday On Duty WOD.
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| Written by a Student |
So today after opening the building, at 7am I did my first plank of the day. The first couple of hours as the boarding students slept, I planked quietly behind the front desk area, a few sets in I was joined by two of my co-workers who have joined each hour since then, although I may have lost one to Saturday Night and adult beverages. As the day progressed not only did I pick up two co-workers, I was also joined by some of our students. Slowly the planking party was growing, like any sort of movement it takes that first follower to get the rest to jump on board. Along the way a random co-worker or two just looked down as they watched the group of us plank and just shook their head, but who cares. Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way. By dinner time our planking was starting to become a community activity when six of us at one time were planking, its a small dorm and a quiet night. Today for the record I have planked and texted, planked and video Skyped and planked and Facebooked. Nothing like multitasking to make those two minutes go by faster each hour.
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| Keeping Time |
After dinner the kids even ran to the front desk area to drop into a plank when the hour struck. It was a rewarding experience to have the kids want to engage in the activity. In a world where many question my motivations and are quick to write off my activities as crazy these kids get it, and want to be part of it. It warms my heart when a 14 year old drops the cell phone and planks. They also said they wanted to make today’s blog. One of the girls changed our white board to say, “Drop what you’re doing and… plank”. I felt like a proud parent after she wrote that. Yes, I do work at a school with athletes but this is their day off and they are getting excited about doing something normally reserved one of their many training sessions. They want to leave the couch and computer to join in the fun. Being able to instill just a part of what I do and who I am into their day is an absolute amazing feeling. As well my fellow dorm supervisors who have decided to join in each hour are troopers and just might actually be enjoying the planking by the end of tonight.
This hasn’t been an exceedingly tough WOD, really more of a distraction for the day, and helped the hours melt away. It is amazing how quickly you realize it’s time to do another two minutes. Maybe next dorm duty weekend I will institute burpees every hour, although with races coming up my next weekend will not be until the first weekend in January. At should be an interesting day, 20 burpees on the hour every hour. But that’s for another day. It’s almost time to plank again….
FINAL COUNT FOR THE DAY… 16 Rounds – 32 minutes of planks. 7am -10pm on the hour every hour.
