Virtual Boot Camp

It came back to me immediately, just like riding a bike again.

Look ma! Positive K/D ratio!

Summer of 2013 was a special summer, one that I’ll try to replicate again and again. My one rule was to not buy a replacement PS3 and instead spend my summer doing anything that wasn’t playing video games. While I kinda cheated the system a bit – Magic cards, Cards Against Humanity, a very light dabbling into Star Wars: The Old Republic – for the most part my game-less summer led to days at the beach and nights throwing bags and knocking back cold ones with friends. It led to being told I look very Jack Johnson with my disheveled swim hair and dark tan (she playfully twirled my chest hair with her fingers as she said this to me). It led to girls and midnight skinny dipping.

December was a bitch. Usually we expect the worst in January and February, and for Jack Frost’s sake we live in Minnesota, we have to take the bad with the good! But December joined the wicked winter club and I had to buckle. I bought a PS3.

Even though I’ve had it for weeks now, I’ve only been replaying some single player games (the Metal Gear Solid series – highly recommended if you’ve somehow lived under a rock and avoided playing them so far in life!). However, at Thor’s suggestion, I recently fired up Black Ops, strapped on the Bluetooth, and dusted off the old clan tag.

Here’s a twist though: since I had just come from a day with a work lunch meeting (16 Pizza Hut boxes lined the back of the room) and then the local bar and grill’s chicken wing special, I knew I couldn’t just waste my evening away. I needed to get some cardio in. After all, summer 2014 will be here, ready for it or not, and I hope to be less the person (and more the man) I was last year when I go skinny dipping again!

So while I was waiting for the latest Black Ops update to download, I strapped on my running shoes and warmed up on my elliptical. By the time I got through updating, fiddling with pairing the Bluetooth, and signing online, I had a good warm feeling all throughout me. When the loading screen for our first match appeared, I stepped up the pace.

First map I’ve played in Black Ops in probably 2 years? Firing Range, the training ground for new black ops agents. How fitting that I was simultaneously training myself for a future 5k on this map.

I ended with a 22 – 8 Kill-Death Score. Thor was right behind me on the leader boards.

Balancing on the elliptical while holding a PS3 controller proved slightly difficult. I’m sure my pace dropped significantly as I turned focus to the game, but I didn’t stop moving at all. I did slow down to a walk between rounds and noticed I was not out of breath, but breathing heavy and my heart rate was up. Thor mentioned how he could hear the elliptical squeaking with each stride over my mic. I couldn’t adjust my mic any lower without turning it off completely, so he had to deal. I had the next round timer ticking down and stepped up my pace.

Same map. Better K/D Ratio.

At this point, I was going for two 10-minute rounds. Twenty minutes at a jogging pace, with a minute slow-down between rounds. I played half the 3^rd round in a cool-down walk, but I jumped off and sat down to finish my night out.

I don’t know if the new map for round 3, the change in game play modes, or what,  that made the difference, but maybe it was the decreased blood flow from sitting down.  I did horrible, and continued to do horrible for the rest of the night. I jogged one more round but was quickly losing enjoyment. I called it early and started composing this little summary before the adrenaline from my exercise wore completely away.

I was up this week to 312 pounds. Two years ago at my heaviest I was 355. Three months ago I was 293. Those twenty pounds crept back on over the holidays and I needed to punish them, and myself, for letting that happen. So while this winter might be longer and harsher than we’ve had lately, there’s no excuse for me to stop working towards my goals and building a better beach body for June!

I highly suggest anybody looking to squeak some cardio into their day to go look for something they can put in front of the TV. You don’t have to have a full treadmill or elliptical; you can find a second-hand pedal stand that sits in front of your chair, just an axle with bike pedals on either side. Sit there, play your PlayStation, and keep your legs pumping throughout 3 matches. Bam! There’s your 30 minutes of exercise a day! The time goes by so quickly when you’re playing a deathmatch on Call of Duty! Iif you can afford, using something that gets your whole body moving is probably better. Besides, you’re goal is to work up a sweat, and you don’t want that soaking into your favorite lazy boy recliner!

Thor works tonight, he says, so if I decide to slay some virtual terrorists again, I might be flying solo. Anybody who wants to join me, tweet me your PSN handle to @boymeetsgin and run to a second-hand exercise store to find something to work out with while we play!