Have a Heart


Patrick started working out with Again Faster a few weeks ago. This article is entirely his creation, for which I'm very grateful. He's got a ton of heart, and he gets better and better every time out. I hope you enjoy his perspective.

“I must be getting crazy, Jon, because I’ve actually been looking forward to this workout all week.”

This is how I started my Again Faster Sunday. This affliction is nothing new to the people reading this. It’s the thing that gets you up at seven in the a.m., lacing your sneakers, throwing on your Again Faster t-shirt, and getting your heart rate up.

Unless, it’s raining. Then, not so much.

Four of us showed up this morning for Jon’s deck-o-cards workout:

Use a full deck of cards, with each suit signifying a specific exercise. A queen of heart falls, you do ten burpees. A six of clubs means you do six pushups. Diamonds are squats and spades are pull-ups. Pretty simple.

On the rain soaked grass beside Jamaica Pond, we commenced. Within minutes I was feeling the full extent of the workout. Damn burpees. The third card was a four of hearts. The fourth was the ace of hearts. The fifth? The king. Of hearts.


And it’s here that I confirmed my original assertion that I must be getting crazy, because when that last king fell, I actually laughed.

A brief background check.

I’ve spent most of my life playing sports and lifting weights. You know every time Jon complains about people doing curls at the gym? Yeah, he’s complaining about me. I’ve spent years doing bicep curls and bench presses and lat pull downs and accomplishing very little.

It wasn’t because I thought this was the best thing to be doing. I liked what the curls did for my biceps, but the fact of the matter was, I’d still get winded climbing up a long flight of stairs.

Thing is, I’m a bit lazy.

You’ve read on this website about how so much of this whole thing is about how it’s necessary to convince your mind that your body can take more than you think it can. I’d be lying if I said I was there yet. I still take a break between sets if nobody’s looking. But those breaks are getting shorter.

Mainly because Jon started screaming at me.

Back to the workout. The beauty of the cards is that you have no idea what’s coming next, which means you can’t dread what you still have to get done. The mental block that might tell you to skimp on a set of pull-ups because you have so many more to do is gone, because unless you’re counting cards, you really don’t know how many more you have left. You do what you have to do, then you do what’s next. And then the deck’s done.



Jon, Sam, me, and Colorado resident Alyssa hauled through the workout in about 30 some-odd minutes. Jon and Sam ripped through it with their regular enthusiasm. Alyssa can run for hours on end in Denver’s altitude and she pushed through, finishing with the new goal of getting herself to do more pull-ups. Myself, I started struggling with the pulls and burpees at the last quarter, but I got it done.

Two months ago?

I’d still be laughing every time I heard somebody say burpee.