MARLEY'S GHOST — A HOLIDAY WORKOUT CHALLENGE

MARLEY'S GHOST — A HOLIDAY WORKOUT CHALLENGE
By Shane Robert 

"I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free-will, and of my own free-will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you? Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas-eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain!" 

To anyone who has read the great Charles Dickens story A Christmas Carol, or seen any of the many dozens of film adaptations, the above quote will be familiar. To everyone else, what rock have you been living under? Joking aside, the quote is said by the ghost of a dead business man named Jacob Marley who lived a life devoid of charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence. Each act of avarice building a new link in the chains he is doomed to carry while wandering a joyless afterlife. 

I have always loved this story. As someone who loves both Halloween and Christmas, a ghost story at Christmas time is awesome. I also like the idea that there are tangible consequences for our actions in the form of a literal heavy burden. It reminds me of eating. Which, coincidentally, tends to become less than stellar around the end of the year holidays. Each time we make the choice to eat badly, there are tangible consequences in the form of a literal heavy burden. 

As someone who struggles to stick to a program due to training ADD, I love a good workout challenge. They are typically short and can be stuck in where or whenever they fit into a weekly training schedule. I have devised a fun workout challenge, described below, drawing inspiration from A Christmas Carol, that can be thrown in during the holiday week.

MARLEY’S GHOST — The Workout

Load yourself up with a weight equal to your body weight, plus a few to round up for easy loading if needed. Load however you want, ideally with a whole lot of chains hanging off of you, but any combination of weight on your body will work, as will pulling sleds and sandbags.  Perhaps a combination thereof. If you have a strongman yoke, that could work, too.

Once loaded, proceed to walk. How far? There are two options that I like: 

1. Complete a mile with said load. Ideally as fast as you can, but the time is secondary to simply completing the mile. You can stop walking but you cannot sit down or unburden yourself of the load
2. Set a time that works for you, 20 minutes, 30, 2 hours, you can decide based on how ponderous your chain is, and try to complete as much distance as you can in the set time. Again, you can stop walking but you cannot sit down or unburden yourself of the load.

I am a tad under 190 pounds at the moment, this is what I was thinking (since I only have 2 chains that are 20 pounds each, not the 10 I would need) would work for me to get to 190 pounds:

• Backpack with 50 pounds
• 1 x20# chain hanging from both sides of the backpack 
• 5# Ankle weights on each ankle 
• 90 pound sled

The mile as fast as you can seems appealing, however, as a glutton in general, and for punishment, I really like the idea of going for a full hour and seeing how far I can get.

As is often the case, this looks easy…on paper.