Mako's Message: This is another short one. Sorry to say the next few will probably be short by necessity as well. Why? Because I'd like to finish up summer by Christmas. For personal reasons, mostly, but I think yinz will be happy with me if I pull it off.

...so yeah, that's it. Enjoy!


So, Angela is really serious about this training thing. She called me this morning just as I was heading out for Dave's to ask if we could start today. I hadn't even gotten around to thinking up what we were going to do, but I figured if she was this enthusiastic about it that it'd be a shame to waste it, so I told her I'd come by later and we could get started.

When I met up with Dave and told him about it, he said it was fine if we cut this morning a little short, since the guy Riley was training that morning had called off, so she'd asked him if he could come in a little early(Dave doesn't usually start until afternoon). I wasn't happy about losing some Dave-time, and knowing he'd be with Riley(even if it was work) just made it worse. But once I figure out some sort of schedule I wont have to worry about it happening again so I could deal with it for today.

I just realized I'm going to have almost no time to train on my own.

Well, at least I'll only be training Angela for the summer. Once school starts I'll be able to train on my own. Unfortunately Dave'll be doing most of his training on his own too. I hope he doesn't slack off.

So anyway, after our jog and some time in the weight room I showed him a couple moves to practice on his own then headed over to Angela's.

When I got there she was surprised because she didn't hear Marcus drive up, then asked, "Did you ride your bike over?"

I said, "No I jogged."

She looked suddenly horrified and said, "It's, like, three miles!"

I told her, "I know. It took me about half hour to get here."

She looked more incredulous than horrified when she said, "You're not even winded."

I just shrugged and said, "I was taking it easy."

She stepped aside to let me in, shook her head and said, "Sometimes you scare me Mindy."

I just said, "I get that a lot," and walked in.

We went up to her room to talk about what were going to be doing. I wanted to start with some jogging (she looked kind of panicked when I said that, but I told her we'd just go around her block) then some stretches and probably some strength training since they lift each other up and do pyramids and shit.

While she was changing into her workout clothes, she suddenly picked up the tape measure and asked if I wanted to give it another go. I was going to decline but then at the last second I decided, "what the hell, sure."

I am now, drum roll please... a AA-Cup.

Whoo.

But at least progress is being made.

Anyway, we went outside and we jogged around the block. The idea being to see just what sort of condition she was in. Because I wouldn't let her walk(that would defeat the purpose of this) she only made it around twice. And I'm being lenient in saying she made it around twice. She was practically crying by the end of the second lap and she collapsed in front of her house.

I asked her, "Are you sure you want to do this?"

She gasped out, "Yes." then a minute later pulled herself together enough to ask, "How'd I do?"

I think I summed it up rather nicely in one word, "Pitiful."

I practically had to carry her back into the house for gods sake.

I gave her some water and told her she was going to have to do two laps around the block every day in addition to everything else until I told her otherwise. She asked me if I was serious and I just looked at her with my, "Do I look like I'm joking" face.

I let her finish the water before I dragged her over to a wall so she could work on her split. Nothing else she could do in the state she was in anyway. And I still had to stay there to make sure she didn't flop over.

After that I had her do some crunches and push ups and then I called it a day since I didn't want her too sore to move. Barely move, yes, you can still exercise if you can "barely" move. But it is possible to work yourself so hard you can't even pick yourself up out of bed. It happened to Dad a couple times when he was pushing himself to get to "the next level." He was more careful with me though.

I wonder what he'd think of me training a friend to be a cheerleader...

Anyway.

Marcus won't talk to me about the guy who'd been stabbed repeatedly. Every time I try to bring it up he changes the subject to the barbeque. It's really starting to piss me off. But whatever. If it was important I'm sure he'd tell me.

I'll catch him talking on the phone though. If I heard right, then the motherfucker's cunts have still been stealing whatever isn't nailed down, that trucks have been getting hijacked(mostly food and electronics shipments), the incidents of rape are spiking, and that there are more of them now than ever.

Obviously I'm going to have to talk to Dave about relaxing this "no killing" thing in their case.