I should have biked last Monday in Siargao. But fresh sand was recently dumped onto the road (to even out the bumps) so that, last Sunday, I lost control of the bike and nearly crashed. Three times. I figured a rest day wouldn’t hurt.

Back in Manila, I didn’t count on Typhoon Pedring wiping out my entire Tuesday schedule, including CrossFit. So I stayed in bed and watched the first season and a half of “Breaking Bad”, getting up only to eat and use the toilet.

After two days of inactivity and bad eating, inertia had sunk in. I dreaded CrossFit and postponed going twice today. I woke up early only to turn off the alarm for the 7:30 AM session then, at noon, I walked back to my house, opting to have lunch instead of going to the 12:30 PM class. While making a phone call outside the gym before the 4 PM session, I toyed with the idea of leaving. I could think up a few excuses. The door was half open and no one had seen me yet.

I turned my mind off before I could convince myself to leave and purposefully strode through the red doors, said hello to Karen on my way to the changing room, then plopped myself onto a bench, kicked off my flip-flops and put on my shoes.

Of course, when no one else turned up and it became clear that I was going to have to do the WOD alone, I regretted not having bolted when I had the chance. It was RJ and me, one-on-one. Miko came in before I started but he was there for the 5:30 class. And there was someone else there doing burpees for the hell of it. I’m not sure what his deal was.

RJ was kind enough to adjust the WOD for me. I had to do three rounds of the following:

• 500 m. row (3 minutes) – I did well on my first row. I think I finished in 2:16 minutes. Of course, it was a steady decline from there. On my third row, some people showed up to have a look around and there I was, heaving on the rowing machine with RJ yelling at me, “Push on your legs! Lean back! Go, Gai, you can do it!” and me yelling back, “Fuuuuuuuuck!” We may have scared them good folks away.
• L pull-ups (1 minute AMRAPs) – I laughed when RJ showed me these. He had me do them with the green band, keeping my legs bent in a sitting position. I averaged 12 reps.
• Overhead squats (1 minute AMRAPs) – We started with a 45-lb. barbell but I couldn’t hold the bar aloft behind my head and squat without something giving. After two reps, I pyramided down to the 35-lb. bar and even then had a bitch of a time.
• Medicine ball sit-ups (1 minute AMRAPs) – I think I averaged about 15 reps.

I suck.

But these one-on-one sessions with RJ, although intimidating as hell, are good learning exercises for me. He watches my form and corrects me and, even if I don’t always listen to him and stop often, he does motivate me to try harder.