Friday evening at work I typed “kettlebell” into craigslist and finally something came up. They are still relatively unknown so this was only the second time I’ve gotten anything searching for them on there. The first time it was a dude wanting to trade stuff he had for a 16 kg kettlebell. On Friday there was a guy selling some. Sweet.

That same night the dude got back to me and he offered a few options: Maybe the 16kg if a friend of his didn’t want it, a 24kg made by Pavel’s company, or a competition-style kettlebell that can be filled with lead shot and can weigh anywhere from 8kg to 40kg. That’s 20 pounds…. or 88 pounds, respctively. Yeesh.

I dragged Jenny along for the ride and we headed to where the kettlebells were: Harvard yard.

Saturday was about 96 degrees with probably the same figure for humidity but I was still excited about swinging some kettlebells. Jenny would be excited to not pass out if she ventured out of her air conditioned car. We pulled off of Mass ave into a gate and were given a parking pass for Harvard. There are no parking lots in Harvard yard. We drove around on the paths that wind through the grounds. It was surreal driving a car in there.

The dude who sold me the kb is no joke. He’s been into them for about 6 years and trains for competition. He’s met Pavel, he gets new kettlebells shipped to him for free and you can tell by looking at him that he’s probably about as strong as a silverback.

He brought us up to his place, which looked like a kettlebell factory upon our arrival. He had taken out an array of kb’s for us to check out. We grabbed the 53 pounder and the competition bell and went back down to the yard to try them out.

I figured why wouldn’t I go with a tough-to-find adjustable kettlebell over a 53 pounder that I could order any time? It was a done deal.

We headed to Davis square for lunch and then back to the South Shore for a workout that nearly made me barf twice. Joy!

I tried doing my best Pavel impression but even though I skim through this book almost nightly I screwed up the pose.

Sunday I played baseball for a full nine innings and jammed my thumb twice catching. I can’t even hold a can of soda with that hand, but once it heals I’m excited to start tackling this monstrous iron implement of manliness.

In Walken news, here’s the progress for today. Few more tweaks and he’s done.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 28th, 2007 at 2:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized.