Imagined Workout Diaries of Famous Writers

William Faulkner, 1 Rep Max, Deadlifts

The bar is heavy, heavy, heavy, like my soul, and I lift, bereft of muscle it seems, marrow a long ago illusion in this dark place. I am unable to raise the bar without it being followed by a heavier, more thunderous crashing down. My heart aches. I used to think fun was to accomplish something I thought perhaps I couldn’t. Oh, how dreadful to find I was wrong. Deadlifts are not fun, not today, oh not today at all.

Ernest Hemingway, “Murph”

• 1 Mile Run

• 100 Pull-Ups

• 200 Push-Ups

• 300 Air Squats

• 1 Mile Run

Pull-ups. Blood. Thank God there are women here in small, tight pieces of clothing. I feel like a man.

Toni Morrison, "Elizabeth"

• 21-15-9 Reps For Time:

• Cleans (135/95 lb)

• Ring Dips

Don’t be afraid. I’m here, but I’m gone. The yellow stripes on that man’s faded blue shirt bring forth long-shuttered memories in a kind of rain that knows no cloud, magically dropping liquid to earth with the strength of those who had seen death, or worse — life unending. I walk back to the barbell and find it disappeared, like the young girls who knew no mothers other than the toothless aunts on the porch, rocking in their memories of life swole up in their throats like so many soaked sunflower seeds, or love long ago ended – poisoning them as it nourished.

The workout long ago ended. No one is here. My voice echoes in the emptiness of this hollow space, and this moment. All that’s left to do is what the young girls do who have known the ache of this life—weep, weep, and weep some more. The rings sway in the shadow of the setting sun yet I have no idea what time it is. I never made it out of the warm-up. Such is this life that scratches what? Chalk cakes the bottoms of my shoes, mocking me and what I’ve forged from this oddly echoing life all the way out the yawning cargo bay door. Where o where sweet demon did I park my car?