Day 13 - Tinker Coffeehouse - #Training

Take two: I am at Tinker Coffee in Broad Ripple and this is one thousand times better than Java House on the Monon because the tea is real here —- Earl Grey and there are other people out on the front porch of the Firehouse and they’re quietly working too not yapping and Moby’s Porcelain is playing and the sun is high and bright and I’ve set the timer on my watch for thirty minutes and this is starting to feel like an actual journal entry for day 13 of my training.

Yesterday’s workout with Chris we started out stretching out my shoulders, sundial stretches times ten on on both shoulders, then forward, side, back lunges on each leg, then jump squats forward —- the length of a yoga mat, twenty total — then back to the lunges again, the back to the jump squats again. Now here come the 5 inchworms and 5 pushups x 2 then more lunges and step-ups onto a bench-press bench. Then back to the shoulder stretches again —- then more pushups up two sets of 5 inchworms and 10 pushups each. Then one push-up hold for one minute.

All of this takes about an hour and I am probably leaving some things out but that’s okay. When it’s all over and done with I feel ten thousand times more settled than I did in the morning before the workout and the quick one mile run to loosen up and clear out the cobwebs helped me a lot. It’s a lot better going into the workout already warmed up because then the workout feels a lot less like something to get through or survive and a lot more like an hour of power to dominate and enjoy.

My body feels so vulnerable right now but in a the best way possible. It feels like a new operating system is being installed —- an upgrade so there’s a lot of beauty in the process but that beauty cannot be rushed — it grows when it grows and it grows how it grows and the point isn’t to tame it or trim it or manage it or control it but to let it grow wild and channel its energy into this beautiful game.

Tennis will always give me back everything that I put into it and more. The only question is can I be disciplined and patient enough to let it all flow in and come back to me — very slowly, and little by little, over time.

-Jordan Myers