You Can't Quit

...As I walk into the clubhouse for the first time, my head is spinning about two thoughts. Foremost is "Wow, I've never seen anything like this at a rugby club before." The second is some inconsequential drivel about some new slippers I'd gotten the hour before. I am immediately introduced to Scott, who I'd communicated with by e-mail in the weeks previous. He is shorter than me with a barrel chest and a weathered grin. "Hooker," I think. Since my arrival I've assumed everyone in New Zealand plays rugby, and Colin and I point out classic positional body-types to each other on the street. Scott makes a point of showing me everything the clubhouse has to offer. There's a small gym with a lot of the more health-spa type of equipment. There's a bar, of course, with a lot of seating and a direct view of the pitch. Scott tells me that a personal trainer will talk to me about designing specific plans for my progress and he's asked the bartenders to look out for job opportunities while I'm in the area. He mentions that today is only fitness and games. "We're going to take it real nice and easy today, mate. Don't worry," he says. I'm informed I'll be practicing with and playing in Division 2. The first division practices off-site in the preseason with the Canterbury regional system. I am excited but a bit nervous that I've been put in D2 when there are three other teams lower than that on the rung. Shades of Drew Gottlieb. "Great. This is great."
...I show up later around six o'clock for the session. My cleats are laced up and I'm stretching a bit. Jason, the head trainer, calls everyone over to a circle. Again assuaging my anxieties, "Just gonna take it easy today and have some fun, guys. We'll just be happy if nobody gives up." Well shit, if it's like that I'm going be a professional Crusader in no time. Unfortunately, it is NOT like that. Unfortunately, the entire next hour and a half will be circuit training mixed with running with barely any rest at all. Unfortunately, I had fried fish, french fries, and cappuccino for food today. They're not taking it easy at all, are they?
...The first circuit session begins. For me and my Samoan training partner Sam, the starting station is sandbag squatting. Each station is 30seconds at maximal intensity, finished with a 75meter sprint around the complex. Depending on how long your sprint took, you'll get 5-10 seconds rest before you move on to the next station, whether that be sumo wrestling, plate pressing, tire flipping, or whatever. We complete 10 rounds to start off. That's 750 meters sprinted, 5 minutes of maximal intensity anaerobic work, and a minute to a minute and a half of rest, performed in about 8 minutes. At this point at Guilford, the entire team would be complaining and threatening to quit. I know, I've tried to enforce conditioning there. To tell the truth, I want to quit. I want to quit badly. I'm fresh off 8 months of basically nothing. These 50 or so boys (and girls) I'm with are fresh off the last season, and some from an entire summer of 7-a-side rugby. It looks effortless to some of them. Sam the Samoan is a quarter around the track already by the time I get up from the pushup station. "Thank God the circuit is done," I'm thinking. "Time for the fun."
...We move straight into a ball game which is kind of like American football played with 50 people and no rhythm. Pass up and down the field constantly, and you can only touch your training partner on the opposite team to stop him. Essentially, you're running around for 5 minutes trying to catch people. Fun? Not really, there's hardly structure. I'm glad when it's over. Skill work, surely.
...Except it's not, it's jogging back to the circuit lap. "Really?" I think, and I realize I feel defeated. I don't want to do this anymore. As I line back up with Sam at the bag tackle station he murmurs something to the effect of "People missing?" I'm too tired to process this and before I can relax enough to fart we're off again. "Lord, please let me just fart." Seven more go rounds on the circuit. Another 525meters sprinted, 3.5 minutes of maximal anaerobic work performed, with minimal rest, in about 5 minutes. Midway through I'm feeling the nausea. The fish from earlier is swimming around again. I hate my body, I hate the way it feels, and more than anything I hate this. I hate this. I want to stop. "I need to stop," I think. I'm thinking about other things so I don't have to think about how much I'm hurting. I'm thinking how much much I wanted to be here, how long I planned. I think about the people I left behind to be here; friends, family, others. I remember that I promised myself I wouldn't quit no matter how hard it got. I remember telling Scott that I was here to work hard. He gave me a Division 2 tryout spot for all that talk. As that one crosses me, I hear the man yelling my thoughts, "You told me you were going to work hard, Nick! Let's see it!" I'm immediately shamed. I realize that everyone expects me to come in last. They expect I'll be shocked by their commitment and efforts. Secretly, I am. But I can't let anyone know that. I can't risk the embarrassment of being the new guy that can't hack it. I can't quit.
...We go to the next ball game. It's touch with 50 people, and every handling error means your team must run all the way back to the endline before you can even defend against the turnover ball. There is one ball for these 50 people, so it is again, essentially more running. A prop muscles over to me and asks how I'm doing. "I want to die," I wheeze. "Welcome to Linwood." At this point I am so under the weight of my own exhaustion that I don't even care anymore. It's like some kind of death dance. There more I move, the less conscious I feel. I'm thinking of my boys back home, how they must have felt when I pushed them hard. This resentment is building from this ridiculous amount of work, yeah? Then I notice the islander kids, about 15-25 of them. They're giggling, darting around back and forth through the rest of us who are walking (back to the circuit, mind you,) trying to grab and tug at each other. They're laughing and playing. They're laughing and playing while I'm dying. I'm wondering how anyone can even like rugby down here, what the difference is. And then, it hits me. There is no difference. I love the game the same way they do, but I remember that I only really truly enjoy myself when I can play to my ability. There's just no sense in being able to play an 80 minute game for 20 minutes, I realize. These kids are so used to this work that it really isn't even work to them. Their level of maintained fitness is a given. That's how New Zealand is the best in the world with only 4 million people in the entire country. The game is played by a different class of athlete.
...We're doing the circuit. Again. For the third time. I'm a zombie. I try to do a pushup but I can't even begin to move my own bodyweight. They're even hard from the knees. I switch to crunches and try to separate the physical pain from my thoughts. Some voodoo Buddhist shit. I'm too tired to remember which culture I'm mentally co-opting. All I know is I have to become something else. I'm dying because this is my first practice. I'm not like them, not yet. This thought gives me a kick, and as soon as the station is done I take off, jump over the tires, and lap about 15 guys around the corner in front of a visiting former All-Black captain that used to play here. There is no new energy. No second wind. I'm thinking of all my psychological maladies, how I've hated myself, how I can't get out of my own skull. How I can feel so distant from some emotions, but can't escape the awful sinking feeling of despair... or of impending cardiovascular failure. I remember again why I'm here, why I'm running, why I'm half way around the world, why I left so much behind and committed so much to be here. "You want to be something else. You are going to be something else."
...We finish the circuit and complete 10 more 50m sprints. As the session comes to a close I realize what Sam was talking about. Of the 50 some who started there are maybe 40 left. It's not like I made it up Normandy Beach, but it feels real good. On the walk home I'm not thinking as usual. Staring at people from moving cars, revving engines, and whistling blow off valves is some type of intense national pride in New Zealand, but I'm staring right back at them. Not because I think I'm a hardass, I'm just too tired to remember they don't think it's funny. One guy takes offense and circles back around to do it again, then another and a U-turn to make it four revving, valve-blasting, hard staring passes. I think he's jousting me. I have a 7km walk back to my bed ahead of me, 10k if I want to eat. Tomorrow I'll move into my house and start living here. I'll be something different. I hope by the time I stop feeling like dying on the pitch that I'll feel comfortable in my new skin. I get back to the hostel, eat a 2/3lb steak, a large potato, an orange pepper, a whole onion, two peaches, and a litre of milk and watch some movie where Samuel Jackson chains up Justin Timberlake's girlfriend in his house.