The next question in my mind was How many more pushups than thirty I can do in a set, and the answer is one. Or, thirty-one pushups in a set. I just couldn't eke out fifty pushups this morning, just the thirty, so that left me with four more sets of thirty for the day. Which means four sets of thirty to do between 6:00 PM and 10:00 PM, because I'm too self-conscious to do pushups at work. It's tough, but it's doable spaced out every hour. To my mind, also, it's less daunting to do five sets of thirty rather than six sets of twenty-five. Anyway. I did the thirty-one at six, and then couldn't get past thirty at seven.
"Thirty more for a hundred and twenty," I say to pit crew at eight, who's in charge of telling me when it's time to do another set.
"Actually you only have to do twenty-nine," he says.
"I can't think like that," I say, getting down on the floor. "Losers think like that!"
I barely bust out thirty, by the skin of my teeth. Surely twenty-nine would be acceptable for the last set, absolutely not!
On the other hand, I can't do just one extra pushup for the day. Wait, let me think if I can—
ETA 2/24/10: You knew that I couldn't, right? I rounded it up to five extra pushups. By the way, I can do thirty-five pushups in a set now—
