News-Record.com

Ryan offered to "smoke" us a few weeks ago, when we were looking for new exercise ideas. We were both up for it -- but unfortunately, we also had the flu.

By this weekend we were feeling better -- and we agreed to go with Ryan to Starmount Park to be shown just how inadequate we are.

Now, my dad was a career Marine. I've seen them PT. I was not under the impression I was anywhere near ready for this. Amanda also had her doubts.

"What if he tells us to drop and give him pushups?" she said to me before we left.

"Then we give him pushups," I said.

"I don't think I can do pushups," she said.

"Well, you can do the girlie-pushups," I said. "With your knees taking most of the weight. I think they let you do that in basic."

"Yeah," she said. "I don't think I can do those either."

As it turns out, Amanda held up to this better than I did.

First, it should be said that Ryan was exceedingly easy on us. He brought a list of things he could have done to us and got not even half-way down it, taking us through only the most basic of stuff sure not to kill us.

Unfortunately, we were so pathetic and weak that this was pretty much all we could handle.

The worst bit came at the end -- the "smoking" Ryan had so gleefully described to us. Essentially we had to, on his command, go from pushups to leg-lifts to rolling left and right, to running in place with our legs kicked as high as is possible, back to push-ups...

I've never done so many pushups that I couldn't do any more. This is not because I'm especially strong -- it's because I've never attempted to do so many pushups that I couldn't do any more. But on Saturday, near the end, it was everything I could do to dig my numb fingers into the freezing ground and keep my face out of the cold mud.

And then, an unexpected little horror: when we were rolling left and then right on the ground, I got a bit dizzy. So did Amanda. But when I stood up in the "Go" position and began running, it didn't go away. When I dropped to do pushups, it didn't go away. When I was doing leg-lifts, it didn't go away. And then we were rolling again. It got worse. I pushed through, figuring this was probably normal.

But at the end, when we had stopped working and were giving our breathless on-camera interviews to Louis Bekoe of N&R Interactive (that footage to follow soon), I was still dizzy. In fact, it was worse. I stumbled to the car after saying some grumbly goodbyes and sat there, trying to get the feeling back into my frozen fingers. My heart wasn't racing and I wasn't breathing hard anymore...but I was still crazy dizzy. I closed my eyes to try and get myself grounded...and when I opened them up again, everything was black and white, completely washed out like a photo negative.

"Oh no..." I thought as Amanda chatted gingerly with Ryan and his wife. "This isn't normal..."

I closed my eyes again and opened the car door, just in case I was going to throw up. I didn't feel nauseous -- but the last time I remembered my vision going all wonky and out of control like that I was in a boxing match. That I lost. If I was going to lose my lunch, I didn't want to do it in the car.

Amanda came back and asked if I was going to die.

"I don't think so," I said. "Let's just go home."

My vision hadn't cleared up -- everything was still bright, ambient and overexposed. So I closed my eyes and laid my head back. When I opened them again, a few blocks from home, things were no longer black and white. Now they were completely white. Completely washed out. Like a spotlight in my eyes. I couldn't see anything.

"Um..." I said as Amanda drove us. "I...I can't see."

"You can't see?" she said.

"No," I said. "I can't see. At all."

"We're almost home..." she said cautiously.

By the time we got home things were beginning to come in again -- grainy and washed out, still no color -- but at least I could make out their shape. I opened the door and tried to step out but was dizzy. I looked down at the ground and it was completely white, as though it were covered with snow.

It is cold outside, I thought.

"Did...did it snow?" I asked Amanda.

"No," she said, trying not to betray how creeped out she was. "It didn't snow..."

I stumbled into the house, peeled off my muddy clothes, splashed my face and hands with warm water and sat on the bathroom floor, looking up at the ceiling. Slowly it went from black and white to Technicolor and my dizziness abated.

I walked out to the living room where Amanda looked up at me.

"You didn't die," she said.

"No, I didn't die," I said.

"Good," she said. "I was ready to keep going."

And she was. The next day I was so sore I didn't want to move. She went to the gym.

The female of the species is, indeed, more deadly than the male.