This was cooler than it reads

Something very strange happened today. With kids at their Grandma's and wife working late, I packed up my gym bag this morning for a post-work workout, making sure I set 'record' on the Tigers/Pale Sox game since I would likely miss several innings. Work was work-like, and not strange at all. Lunch was entirely normal. My drive to the gym? Smooth sailing, and had an excellent discussion (on the bluetooth - safety first) with Murray, who, with his doctorly knowledge and triathlete's body awareness, dropped some advice on how to control my recent hamstring aggravation. 

Lately, gym visits seem difficult to come by, so I've adopted a policy of staying a minimum of 1.5 hours, oftentimes 2, to make it worthwhile. Let's say I haven't been much of a workout freak in my life. Playing sporting games and jogging now and again? Yes. But working out for fitness' sake? Not so much. Until I turned 30. The impetus being fear of physically breaking down and losing my incredibly manly psychological edge over children. What in Insecurities' name am I rambling about?

So 1.5 hours seems plenty for me at the gym, and I make it work by cross-training. And by cross-training, I mean casually shooting basket hoops for a good hour, then doing 8 curls, then jogging for 10 minutes on some sort of futuristic moving floor apparatus, then hitting the hot tub and sauna for as much time as I can stand without shriveling up or becoming that creepy guy that is just ALWAYS in there.

Today, I started my workout like I often do, in the basketball courts. The gym I frequent is not your pick-up game type place. The court is used for local high school lacrosse practice more than basketball, but I relish the isolation at times. I still LOVE shooting. It's not because I think I'm going to become a rec-league All Star, it's because I love the rhythm and the sounds and the satisfaction of still being reasonably good at something athletic. And I don't just play H-O-R-S-E with myself, I do shooting drills. Really. I have to make 10 of 10 alternating right-then-left hand layups from under the basket (harder than you think, especially for those who played intramurals with me at GVSU and remember that 2 year period where I had layup mental block), then 8 of 10 free throws, then 6 of 10 3-pointers going back and forth from the corners of the arc to the top of the key. If I miss my goal in a given drill, I finish the 10, then start that drill over until I get them all. In between, it's just normal dribbling and shooting and imagining I actually get to take my warmups off this time- wait, that was high school. Super lame, right?

After totally sucking at free throws today, I finally hit my 80% mark, then decided it would be a good idea to test the hammies and see if a dunk was possible. Upon smashing the ball into the front of the rim, I realized another benefit of having, essentially, my own gym: lack of witnesses. This fact, however, would prove to be somewhat disappointing in a few minutes. That is, of course, because the strange event was about to happen.

Standing in the right corner, I watch the wall clock for the seconds to wind up to 0 again, knowing my 10 threes routine takes about 90 seconds. At 5:28 I loft my first shot: CLANK. Rebound, opposite corner, nail it. Retrieve ball, move back across but a bit further off the baseline, bury another. This continues until I hit my 6th trey, in 7 attempts. Nice, I'm at my goal with 3 shots to go. With minimal effort and my form locked in, I can 3 more in a row. 9 of 10 - as good as I've ever done! In my movements, I was cutting the lines a little shallow and never got to the very top of the key, straight away from the hoop. So I sauntered there and threw up another shot for good measure. Swish. 10 of 11. What the hell, I think, let's start over. Corner - boom. Opposite - boom. At 14 of 15 shots it hits me: I missed my first shot. That's 14 in a row. At this point I am starting to giggle a little bit as each shot falls. The meat heads doing lat pull downs outside the court door are probably thinking, "What's with Grinny McSkinny?" I continue my circuit and finish again at the left wing with #19 going down easy. At the top of the key I hoist again and it finally, belligerently, rattles out. 19 of 21 is sweet, but more freakishly, those 19 successfully scoring in order. 

83% of you (basically, everyone who didn't play IM hoops with me) are waiting for a point, a different tangent, a horrifying ankle sprain to spice things up. But that was it. I made 19 straight 3-pointers today, and have no witnesses to corroborate my story. I considered leaving the gym immediately and rushing to Energy Solutions Arena to apply for a job as Kyle Korver's understudy (clarification for non-Utahans: that dude can shoot and has dreamy good looks. What?), but decided instead to do strenuous actions with heavy things for a bit before calling it a workout.

I am a man, I'm 30, and I still think it's important to be good at some sort of sport. Even if 'good' means able to make shots I've practiced a jillion times, without defenders, in an empty gym. It's my world, and you're all just not witnesses.