WET AND WILD

It has been raining here for about 2-3 weeks now, I had not heard from sir regarding workouts since the hazmat endurance and had assumed it was due to the rain. Although moved into the new unit and work returning to a regular routine I had not yet restarted going to the gym, I got a text from sir in the morning telling me training was on that afternoon and assumed he would be supervising a gym workout due to the weather and was a little worried about how I would go on my current program after close to a 4 week break. I txt’d sir and asked him when I should meet him at the gym and he replied that the workout would take place in the usual park. I asked what we would do if it was still raining and he told me there was sufficient cover that the rain would not worry him…… of course. Silly me. I rocked up and thankfully it was only lightly spitting rain although the ground was well and truly drenched and the grass longer then usual since it had not been mowed recently. Sir arrived and told me to stretch, I worked my way through my stretches leaving any that required sitting or laying down till last, sir noticed my hesitation and mentioned that I was going to probably be drenched with sweat and water by the end anyway so I should just get on with it. Once the stretches where completed I had to do my sit ups and pushups. I completed my usual 100 situps and managed 35 pushups in the 2 minute allotment. Sir then sent me on a 2.4k run (he was being nice and knocked 100m off)

I thought I did badly since I had not run for ages and ended up walking a considerable amount, however when I finished sir told me I had taken 2mintues off my time. He was impressed although I suspect I may not have done the full course by accident. While I was gone he had set up the markers in a line and I was to do the usual run and jog routine until I was unable to do anymore. He also made me carry my sling bag as a weight with my waterbottle and other items in it. The ground was drenched with puddles everywhere which made running hard and the bag kept shifting. I did not manage many before I collapsed. Sir was not happy, he told me to do 20 pushups as punishment and go again but I couldn’t hold myself off the ground, he then said 10sit ups if I was to pathetic to do a pushup but I couldn’t manage any of those either. He was very unhappy and made me crawl on hands and knees through the mud to retrieve the markers. He told me we where going to need to put some serious work into my stamina. And then left me to do my warmdown stretches.

endurance in hazmat

Sir had gone on holidays over xmas he has left me some training homework to do while he was gone. Unfortunately since I was moving house and busy at work I had been unable to find time to do these exercises. When he returned he asked if I had done the homework he had set for me, I truthfully answered him that I had not. He told me that I was going to be punished for this, when I asked him how he said he was gonna make me really sweat it out. I had no idea how literal he was being.

He told me to come round to his place after work, I asked if I should bring anything and he told me to bring my zodiac hazmat suit. This immediately made me worry, and realize he meant it when he said he was going to make me sweat it out. For those of you who do not know a zodiac suit is a heavy (VERY HEAVY) rubber suit that is used for protection when handling hazardous chemical components. You don’t just sweat in it, you pretty much cook in it. I arrived at his place and he took me into his garage and told me to clear all of the stuff that was laying around into a cupboard at the end of the garage. He then had me kneel in front of him and he put my collar on me, it was really tight I had a little bit of trouble breathing normally. I waited for him to tell me to strip and put the hazmat suit on but he just left and I got to work. There wasn’t that much stuff but it is summer over here and this is also the tropics, so an enclosed space with no air circulation is not the most comfortable of places, the temp was about 27degree C which works out to about 81F I think. Humidity was at about 70-80% so as you can imagine I was already sweating just from being in the room. I had everything cleared out of the way soon enough. Just got everything put away in time as sir returned. He had two buckets, a ladle, chains and a spreader bar. I had some idea of what might be coming but I wasn’t 100% sure. He told me to strip and put my zodiac on. I stripped off and as I did so reached up to take off the collar but he stopped me. this was not good, if I tilted my head down the collar was on so tight that it restricted my breathing as it was, combine this with the fact I was soon going to be wearing a gasmask and about 7kg (15.4 pounds) of rubber I was sure going to have trouble getting air.

I pulled on the zodiac, they come in two parts, the first part is similar to a set of chest waders, then the top part is like a t shirt with a hood on it (assuming the t-shirt is made of rubber and weighs about 3 kg) you put the gasmask on before pulling the top on and the hood has holes for the gasmask to go through, once this is done the only way to get the gasmask off is to take the entire top half of the suit off. There is two flaps on the top and bottom halves that you roll up like a poster to form the airtight seal for the suit. Then gloves and boots. Just getting it on I could feel the sweat pouring out of my body. Once it was on sir had me stand near one corner of the garrage, he had me spread my feet slightly and then placed the spreader bar between them and chained it to each boot, he then ran a chain under the bar and had me place my hands at waist height and he chained each of those to. I now couldn’t lift my hands above my waist. He placed one bucket which was full of water in one corner of the garage and the other bucket which was empty in the other corner, he handed me the ladle and told me to use it to fill the empty bucket from the full one (he made me start standing next to the empty bucket).

My first problem was that sir had been very devious when he put the spreader bar on, one end was chained in front of one boot and the other end chained behind that boot. This meant that I wasn’t able to take a full ‘step’ since the bar would stop me. it also meant that when turning I was only able to pivot in one direction, and had to sort of rock in the same spot two or three times to turn around. I made my way towards the full bucket, as I lowered the ladle into the bucket I became aware of the second biggest issue. Since I could not bring my hands above waist height I had to tilt my head down to see what I was doing and also to watch the ladle to make sure not to much spilt (I had been warned against this, with a dark hint of the bucket being refilled if to much was spilt) however if I tilted my head down the collar restricted my breathing to much, so I had to sort of lean my whole body forward and ‘gorilla’ walk my way from one bucket to the other.

There was no chance of me cheating, my own breathing in the mask plus the chains and the rubber around my head made it a little hard to hear, so I would not be able to hear sir coming back, plus the time it would take me to pick up either bucket and get it to the other bucket and then back to it’s original corner was far to long.

I can sum up the first hour of this exercise very easily, sweaty, hot and frustrating. Sweat was running down my whole body and I am not just talking little drips, within about half a hour by boots where already squishy with sweat and the fingers of the gloves where also filling with sweat, making it harder to control the ladle. I couldn’t get enough air and had to constantly keep reminding myself to stay calm and not panic. The lenses of the mask where fogged up with sweat so I could barely see what was going on. And every now and again sir would come in and tell me to go faster or give me a boot up the arse and try and make me spill the ladle of water. Constantly wanting to take a full ladle of water but knowing I had to tip a little bit out so that I didn’t spill to much. And then sir would come in and move the buckets around to different areas of the room or refill the first bucket a little.

Eventually I got the bucket nearly emptied, and then another challenge presented itself. The water in the first bucket was to low to scoop with the ladle, so I had to pick up the bucket and carefully tip water into the ladle, this sounds easy until you realize I had gloves on that where now pretty much full of sweat. And probably 10% visibility through the gasmasks visors.

I can’t even begin to describe how fantastic it felt to pour the last of the water out and then empty it finally into the other bucket. By this stage sir had set up a chair and was reading a book and drinking beers while watching me. he told me later he had expected it to be boring and would just come back every now and again to check but he had found the sight of me waddling around in the suit to entertaining to stay away for long (evil man, evil I say). He had me kneel down and then as I watched he pulled out a half full water bottle and filled the other half with piss, he unlocked the chains around my wrists and placed the bottle on the ground and told me to get out of the suit. I managed to extract myself and finally get the collar off and breath easily I then dove onto the water bottle, even this piss tasting lukewarm water was heaven to me after being stuck in my hot sweaty prison for the last hour and a half. When I finished the bottle (so about 6 seconds later) sir told me to pack up and get out, training would begin again next week and I better not disobey him again or next time there would be 4 buckets, different colored water, weights strapped round my ankles and waist and a smaller ladle. I am sorta half tempted to disobey.