Wonderland Chipper

On a clear, cold New Years Day, Lindsey and I took to the outdoors for an absolutely awesome workout up in Becket, MA.  After one of the best New Years Eve's I have ever had, we proceeded to one-up it by having the best New Years Day ever.

A healthy breakfast, lounging around, then this:

Well, let's just go into the process first.  We bundled up and went out to this old barn behind the house (my pops owns this house, it's right next to the Kushi Institute, a center for macrobiotics where my mother is buried).  Scouring around, we found an old wheel barrow, a large piece of piping, a long stone wall behind the barn, and, plenty of space.  So with these tools I came up with a fun little chipper.  We would get a rock, run it to the wheel barrow at the bottom of the snowed over driveway, wheel the thing to the top of the drive and back, get another rock, add it to the mix and repeat.  We would do this three times.  To scale, I started with a rock already in the wheel barrow, and used a pretty damn huge one for the final round.  So big in fact, that the wheel totally busted and made it literally impossible to push, so I resorted to pulling the thing up and back.  That.  Was.  Hard.

The wheel barrow running was followed by a 100 meter up and back sprint through the snow.  This sprint was to be done in between each exercise and proved to be a much larger challenge than Lindsey and I were expecting.  The snow was difficult sure, but it turned out to be just enough UP hill on the way back to absolutely destroy the legs.

The next exercise was 30 overhead lunges with a rock.  Not too tough for either of us.  Then the sprint again.  Next was 30 pull ups.  We hooked the pipe between two trees above the stone wall for Lindsey, and I used a perfect tree branch off a tree in the middle of the yard (only problem was that around 20, the great grip tore off, making my last 10 really challenging).  Another sprint and on to 30 rock throws.  The hardest part of this one was just getting a grip on the rock, and the fact that every rep, more and more snow got stuck on it making it more slippery and heavier.  A final sprint and we were done.  Lindsey got 13:36, and I got 14:58. 



This one goes in the books as one of the best ones all around.  Not just for the workout itself (which could easily be replicated in a gym), but for the weather, the scenery, the company, and the entire day.  As close to perfect for me as they come.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage