Pushup challenge, phase 1

Have you been keeping half an eye on the narrow column to your left? I've been sharing my progress while attempting the challenge outlined at hundredpushups.com. A few fellow masochists and I were doing them at work.

Wellllll.....my floor buddies and I faded for awhile. This week, though, a couple of us started back up again, and I decided to change the rules a bit for me:
1. No more girly maneuvers. From now on, it's the boy-on-my-toes military style, baby.
2. Fuck 100. I'm shooting for 50.

Soooo....this seems like the perfect time to archive my phase one notes in a regular ol' blog post. It was fun!

[11.16.08] Sigh...our momentum at work has fizzled. In the beginning, we MADE time to do our pushups, but lately we've found excuse after excuse not to do them. On top of that, one of our core group has had to quit, per doctor's order. I do have one happy note, though: last week in my Super Circuit class at the gym, we had to do pushups -- I started out with the boy on-my-toes variety, and did 9 of them!

[11.7.08] Still busy. Still did no pushups. Grrr.

[11.1.08] It was freakishly busy at work last week...I ended up doing NO pushups at all. Zilch. Nothing. Nada, baby.

[10.19.08] Got to 28 in my fourth "official" girly-on-my-knees exhaustion test. Bet I could've eeked out another one or two, but I was feeling a little lazy this evening. Sunday IS a day of rest, after all...right?

[10.10.08] Today one of my cohorts challenged me to get off my knees and do boy pushups instead. I was a little curious to see how many I could do, so we both decided to do exhaustion tests -- me on my toes and he with his feet elevated on a chair. I made it to 6, and he did 25.

[9.27.08] Performed a third exhaustion test just for giggles and grins, and got to 23 this time. Almost 1/4 of the way to 100! Before you become too impressed, though, let me remind you I'm doing the girly knee pushups. Oh -- want to hear something funny? One day a couple weeks ago, an occasional pushup bud showed up in the middle of one of our sessions. "Hey, why didn't you come get me?" she asked. She knew we were doing the workout because she'd heard me grunting. From ALL the way across the larrrrge office area. God only knows what other people thought when they heard it....ha!

[9.19.08] I've decided that this "six-week program" is impossible. Each week is divided into three levels, and I'd assumed you'd stay at the same level as you advance to each week. But no. I'll be advancing only to the next level each week, not the next week. Six times three is 18 weeks. And that's IF you don't have to repeat or skip any weeks, like I've had to do. Ahhhhhh well.....I am still pluggin' away with my pushup-buddy co-workers.... Not giving up!

[9.7.08] I won't bore you with the tedium of my ridiculously bad luck since late August. I had to set aside the pushup program for a week, but am planning to get back on track tomorrow! I hope my floor buddies have kept it up -- one of them has been on a tropical cruise, but was determined to get in her three workouts anyway.

[8.31.08] Made it to 15 in my second exhaustion test. This is going to get complicated, because, even though I'm embarking on my 3rd week of pushups tomorrow, I'll still be in Week 2 of the program -- 15 reps did earn my entrance to a more advanced level of Week 2, though. Hey, that's progress! :)

[8.29.08] I don't want to sound like I have a bad attitude. But seriously -- there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to do 100 consecutive pushups with only a 6-week plan. Maybe 6 months. Maybe. Please don't think I'm bitter. I'm OK with being a puny girl-weakling....really, I am. I have other good qualities, right? I can still be a good person even if I suck at pushups, right? Well. I'm done with Week 2. The next step is to do another exhaustion test in a couple of days.

[8.22.08] We're done with Week 1! Looks like we are going to have three peeps in the core group, and others are trying to join us as schedules allow. My floor buddies are doing very well, but I'm disappointed in my own performance. We do five sets of varying reps with rests in between, and on the last set you have a minimum but are supposed to do as many as you can. On Wednesday, it was ALL I could do to eek out the minimum....and today I had total muscle failure before completing the minimum. Grrrrr.

[8.18.08] Our end of the office was so a-buzz with pushup anticipation that two additional people joined us today. That made five of us down on the floor in front of our color copier, doing Day 1, Week 1. Cool, huh?

[8.15.08] Bahh! In my initial test, I couldn't even do one standard good-form boy pushup. I had to do the knee version that is usually reserved for babies and brittle, elderly women. I made it to 10. Yay me.