Day trippin' in Dania Beach

Cross this off my to-do list: Day trippin' in Dania Beach.

Something else to cross off: Beating a boy in a one-on-one sit-up match.

I guess chronology and explanations are in order to unite the aforementioned feats. On Saturday, I got a call from my buddy to participate in a charity event at Dania Beach. The event would take place the next day beachside in Dania Beach (home of the family style sand and no-nonsense raucousness). It would consist of a single-elimination beach volleyball tourney, egg race, sprint, push ups and sit ups. Not one to ever turn down a competition, I signed up on the spot.

Along with my buddy, I was on a four-member squad called Team Norton (the surname of our fearless team captain). And, all proceeds (i.e., entry fees and raffle sign up) benefited a local church looking to send its members to Haiti to help after the earthquake.

After crushing defeats in volleyball and a disqualification in the egg race (our fearless captain cheated: He held the egg on the spoon the entire time), our only chance at victory was the sit-up and push-up competitions.

I'll fast-forward to the sit ups portion of things. Soooooooo, I was paired up to compete against a dude. To be fair, my competition wasn't stiff. In fact, it was a little gelatinous. I had the guy by about 20 years, and it looked like the last time he did a sit up was for the elementary school President's Fitness Award Challenge (you know, the one where you have to do sit ups, pull ups, v-sit stretch and shuttle run). Still.

So we had 60 seconds to do as many sit ups as possible. At the start, the guy came out like a race horse. One, two, three, four, five, six sit ups in about four seconds. At that pace, I thought, he'd be cruisin' to 90 in no time. And, I thought, I better be gracious in my defeat.

Somehow I pulled out the victory. While there's debate over the final number, it seems I managed 45 sit ups in 60 seconds. Not a blistering number, but for me, I'll take it. I was a full 10 sit ups over the gentleman, who, it seems, got ragged on by his friends for losing to a girl.

But man, I'm feeling it in my abs today. It hurts to laugh.