Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 106797 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106797 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 534(@200wpm)___ 427(@250wpm)___ 356(@300wpm)
Still, he was my trainer. My parents were paying him for his service. The least he could do was provide it with a smile, right?
We started the session with a three mile jog around the club property. We ran up and over the hills of the golf course, through the garden, around the tennis courts, and finished with a sprint up the stairs leading to the top balcony of the space used for weddings and events. I had to stop at least ten times along the way, but each time I did Rhodes would scream at me to keep going and threaten me with added distance. The beautiful day I had been admiring in the drive over felt more like my own personal hell halfway through the workout. By the time we reached the top of the stairs, I was completely spent.
“Nice job,” he said simply, wiping the sweat from his face as I chugged from my water bottle. He leaned over the railing for a moment, his gaze caught somewhere across the course. I was panting so hard I had to take short breaths between sips. I felt like I couldn’t drink fast enough and he was just standing there all calm and collected, like we had just watched a movie rather than ran for almost an hour in the Carolina heat.
“Don’t drink too much too quickly,” he said smoothly, lifting himself from his leaning position on the rail. “Take a few minutes and meet me downstairs when you’re ready.” Without another word, he turned and jogged back down the stairs we had just run up. I watched the ridges of his back muscles move in sync as he disappeared from view.
I wasn’t one for cursing, but I could think of at least seven swear words I felt like yelling out to the entire club in that moment. Instead, I focused on my breathing and sipping water until I felt a little calmer before walking down the stairs to join Rhodes. He was setting up some sort of obstacle course with tires, ropes, boxes, and bars.
Good Lord.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t worked out before training with Rhodes, but I’d never experienced anything close to his methods before. I realized at that point that my high school gym classes were a complete joke. Even the Zumba classes that had kicked my butt when Mom and I took them paled in comparison to the sessions I had with Rhodes. He was fierce. He surely had a goal in mind for me, whether I did or not.
“How do you do that without dying?” I asked, nodding toward the path we’d just run.
He shrugged, dropping another, slightly taller box down beside the one he’d just placed. “I just do.”
I fidgeted with the bottom of my t-shirt, waiting for more of an explanation that never came. Sighing, I tried again. “How many days a week do you train?”
“Seven.”
“So you don’t have a single day off?”
“Nope.”
“That’s crazy.” He didn’t respond. “What got you into fitness?”
He paused after placing a weighted plate on the taller of the two boxes, his arms bracing himself on either side. Turning toward me slowly, he locked his eyes on mine as his mouth flattened into a thin line. Small beads of sweat dripped down the ridges of his nose and jaw and I watched them with fascination, wishing I had my camera with me to capture that shot in a stunning black and white monochrome.
“You ask a lot of questions.”
“I asked four.”
“That’s a lot.”
I scoffed, but he didn’t give me a chance to argue further.
“Let’s start here. Grab these ropes.” He gestured down to two, thickly woven ropes that were anchored to the thick pillar below the stairs we’d just climbed. I slowly bent to pick them up and held one in each hand facing the tied end. They were heavier than I expected and I immediately worried about where the workout was heading.
Rhodes stepped up beside me with his arms outstretched, mimicking the position I was holding the ropes in. “These are battle ropes. They’re going to work a lot of different muscles simultaneously and give you an all-over workout. We’re only going to do ten minutes, but it’s going to feel like hours.” I swallowed, gripping the ropes a little tighter. “Start like this,” he instructed, standing with his feet shoulder-width apart and bending his knees slightly before lifting both of his hands up and bringing them down with force. “It’s a simple double wave. Just lift the ropes with both hands and bring them back down as hard as you can, making a wave.”
I lifted the ropes as high as I could and brought them back down with as much force as I could muster, turning to Rhodes for approval. He nodded, his brows bent in that beautiful way that I’d begun to realize was a signature look of his, and I continued. Immediately I noticed my arms burning, but the more we worked, the more the burn spread throughout my entire body. He had me change positions every minute to everything from an alternating wave where each arm worked opposite the motion of the other to shoulder circles, which were exactly what they were called except with heavy ropes that made my upper back and shoulders burn like they were on fire.