Day 83: Don't Lose Yourself Or Your Hope Cause Life's Like A Jump Rope [T-Minus 7]

In one of Patrick's emails he kept mentioning about our long jump-roping sessions might seem daunting. The first thought that came to my mind was: Is he nuts?!?

The first day we had timed jumps I was ecstatic. It was seven sets at two minutes each. I added all the minutes together. That was only fourteen minutes. It was a breath of relief for me because 1500 jumps was taking a half-hour or more to complete. This was only fourteen minutes. What wasn't to be excited about?

Without having to concentrate on the number of jumps I was doing, I was able to play a bit and start working on a jump routine:

5x both feet
10x alternating right & left legs
5x both feet
5x right leg only
5x both feet
5x left leg only
5x both feet
1x front cross

There was much tripping and tangling, but it was a lot of fun! Eventually over the days I was able to get to the point where I was able to repeat this routine four times without a single trip.

Even with the lengthening of time and the changing of the sets, I was still enjoying the j-rope. It was never longer that the half-hour plus that it took me to do 1500 jumps.

Then Patrick's email began to make me think. What if he's trying to tell me some sort of secret? What if I've missed something? So I decided to try another experiment. (If you haven't notice by now, I love testing things out!)

So I gave up the routine and just went for the plain ol' boring double-footed jump and kept count in my head. I was suddenly able to do up to 200+ jumps straight without a trip. Whoa! I definitely wasn't able to do that before! Then when my iPhone alarm went off at the end of the timed jumps I had a new number. I had just done 1600+ jumps in half the time that it had taken me to complete 1500 jumps.

Holy freakin' cow! From Day 1 I would have never believed these results! Back then I spent so much time battling the Implement of Torture j-rope, burning lungs, and knees that just wouldn't stop hurting. Now it's taking me less time to do more jumps with nary a knee pain anywhere and so much enthusiasm for the j-rope.

I think I'll have to agree with Jess on this one. Somewhere along the way, Patrick's Buddhist Magic got me—or quite possibly he flew halfway across the world, snuck into my house, and put something into my Kool-Aid. Either way, it all comes down to this:

"Hi. My name is E, and I'm a jump-rope addict. It has been three-hours since my last jump."

I wish I could quit you!