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His gaze connected briefly with Constance.
“Rope climbs?” somebody said. “The workout you put online last night didn’t have rope climbs. I didn’t wear my long socks.”
“And I’m wearing shorts,” somebody else whined. “I like leggings for rope climbs.”
Rhett raised his voice above the din. “Complainers,” he said, “you know where your car is.” He pointed at the parking lot. The room went quiet. “Part of general preparedness is being able to adapt to and overcome what you’re not prepared for. I don’t care if you don’t have pants, socks, body armor or a gas mask with you today—you can still execute a rope climb.”
The room tittered.
“And I don’t care if you hate snatching.” His gaze went briefly to Katrina. “If any part of this workout is not doable, you are free to scale it, or go to Fitness Universe, just a five-minute drive away. They’re open twenty-four hours, have a juice bar and don’t care if you do rope climbs or eat doughnuts while you’re in the gym. Any questions?”
The laughter intensified, then died off, though Katrina’s face remained stony.
“Good.” Rhett clapped his hands together. “Let’s warm up.”
Constance tried not to think about the run while she went through her air squats and push-ups. If she asked Rhett to row instead, she might as well go home. The snatches and rope climb caught her eye while passing the whiteboard during warm-ups. If she made it through the run, she got to do snatches at a weight and rep scheme that was challenging or impossible for most of the women here but was easy for her, as well as see if she could do another rope climb, especially while exhausted. This workout both terrified and thrilled her.
Constance wondered if Rhett had known that all along.
Once he’d gone through the snatch warm-up and demonstrated the standards and scaling options for all the movements, everyone began loading up their barbells. Constance warmed up slowly, but once the weight was on her bar, she felt confident she could do five in a row, seven times. Katrina had the prescribed weight on her bar, too. Constance overheard Rhett suggesting she scale back ten pounds, but Katrina insisted she would be fine.
Constance had heard arguments like this before, and Rhett always won. Mostly, they consisted of the athlete telling Rhett that he would be fine, followed by Rhett telling the athlete to demonstrate a few reps for him to observe. Once that was done, Rhett would say, “Like I said, strip ten pounds.” Today, when Katrina argued, Rhett shrugged at her and said, “Suit yourself.”
Katrina rolled her bar so that she was directly in front of Constance. “You okay with that weight, Tillie?” She raised her eyebrows at Constance’s barbell.
“Yep.” Constance sounded braver than she felt.
“Aren’t you kind of new to this?” Katrina looked Constance up and down.
Constance resisted the urge to cover all the places on her body that weren’t as perfect as Katrina’s. “Almost five months. Snatch just comes naturally to me.”
“Uh-huh.” Katrina turned away.
Once Rhett told everyone to gather outside the bay door for the two laps around the building, Katrina spent a few minutes putting on her wrist wraps. Even though Constance knew Rhett was growing impatient, she used Katrina’s intentional slowness to gather her own courage as she headed outside. The chatter and nervous energy of the group became like white noise as Constance stepped into the soft spring wind.
The sky was bright and the air smelled clean, like daffodils and March wind. New growth. This was a day not unlike the one last year, when she’d gone to the park to surprise Josh on his run, and Constance had been the one to be surprised instead. She remembered thinking how dainty and cute his new companion was, all decked out in a pink tank top the color of roses and tiny shorts that showcased skinny legs, complete with thigh gap. At the time, Constance had wanted to look like her. Slender. Toned. Obviously in charge of her weight, her body. Now, the memory of Josh’s new running partner was different. The picture Constance had in her mind’s eye was more breakable. The woman seemed less in charge and more like a damsel in distress, which was something Constance had never wanted to be.
She barely heard Rhett count down to one and yell go. The last thing Constance remembered was Katrina, her lips in a sneer as she shoved her way in front, leaning forward like she was on a starting block. What happened next was one of those things Constance didn’t understand until she ran it through her mind later. She took off, not quite at a sprint but maybe two notches under, knocking Katrina out of her way with a well-placed shoulder check. Like a hound that’s found a scent, Constance’s feet just kept pumping as she tore around the building. She heard nothing. She saw nothing but her target: two laps around the gym and then back inside.
By the time she was at her barbell, Constance was shocked to see that Rhett was the only other person in the building. That meant she’d beaten everyone else inside. He stood there, arms crossed, a smile on one corner of his mouth before he shouted over the music, “What’re you standing there for? Pick that shit up!”
With Eminem’s “Till I Collapse” booming from the speakers, Constance snapped to, set herself up in a proper starting position and pulled her first snatch. She dropped beneath the bar with ease.
“Keep up the good form,” Rhett said, stepping closer. “You’re going to get tired, but don’t sacrifice good form for speed, even though you’re going for speed, too.”
Clear as mud, but Constance knew what he meant. She’d spent enough time in barbell class, as well as the high-intensity conditioning classes, that she knew both sides of this coin. She pulled another snatch, this one feeling just as good.
By her third snatch, the rest of the class started to filter back into the gym. By the time Katrina made it inside, Constance was halfway through her push-ups. She felt a surge of energy, a natural high that propelled her through the bicep burning push-ups and on to the rower to knock out her calories. She’d gained just enough time, through her speedy run and ability to execute the snatches quicker and smoother than Katrina, that Constance actually had a chance to beat her. Katrina’s push-ups were ten quick bounces and her row would be slightly quicker, too, with her longer body and better technique. But Constance had the lead and the snatches were going to be the great equalizer.
Constance drew a deep breath and focused on her own work. She ignored the clock and put Katrina out of her sight. All that mattered was that she did this workout as quickly and as well as she could. She didn’t even think about the fact that she’d done her first eight-hundred-meter run outside in over a year; she could celebrate that later.
Once her five rounds were complete, Constance’s legs and arms were on fire. She faced the rope, stood there staring at it while she caught her breath and sweat dripped into her eyes. The electrical tape looked really high, almost impossible to reach.
“Jump into it!” Rhett shouted. “Hook those feet! I don’t care if you’re tired! Embrace the suck! Go!”
Constance summoned any energy left and leaped onto the rope. Her feet flailed around while she tried to grab it and she dropped back down.
“C’mon, Red!” Duke was a few feet away, all finished and clapping his hands together. “Get your ass on that rope!”
