The Gallon Challenge

“Today we’re doing Staff Sergeants,” Aaron said, stretching an arm back over his head and carefully applying pressure to his elbow.

“Those sound intimidating,” Will frowned, following suit by shaking his arms to loosen them. “What are they?”

“It’s something I learned when I worked for the Marines that should kick your butt.”

The pair were standing in a large, sandy area of Plummer Park, a popular haunt frequented by sunbathers, tennis players, and puppy parents. This section of the park was dotted with pull-up bars of varying heights, monkey bars, and parallel bars, which made it a favorite of unemployed gymnasts, athletes, and others who could ill afford an actual gym membership.

The air was dry and hot without being overly unpleasant, and the sun was shining brightly through a scattered veil of clouds; it was perfect weather for a workout.

Aaron walked over the a small brick wall which separated the sandy workout area from the sidewalk and counted 10 bricks across. Setting his keys on top of the tenth brick, he turned back to Will and cracked his knuckles.

“Ok, here’s how it works,” he said, motioning to the pull-up bars. “You’re going to alternate between pull-ups and push-ups, and you’re going to alternate between a pyramid and an endurance test.”

Will nodded slowly, glancing at the bar with a mixture of confidence and trepidation.

“However many pull-ups you can do in one go is your starting number, minimum 10. Let’s assume you’re starting at 10 for simplicity’s sake. You’ll do 10 pull-ups and 20 push-ups immediately. Then you’ll move the keys down a brick to keep track of the count and wait 30 seconds, after which you’ll do 9 pull-ups and 20 push-ups, then 8 and 20, and so on. Got it?”

“What happens at after the last one?” Will asked, absently pulling an ankle toward his back to stretch the leg. “We’re done?”

Aaron grinned. “Halfway. After you finish 1 and 20, you’ll do 1 and 20 again and work your way back up to 10 and 20.”

“Why do I get the feeling this will be harder than it sounds?”

“If it’s not, you’re doing it wrong,” Aaron laughed. “At the bare minimum, you’re doing 110 pull-ups and 400 push-ups in about 10 minutes. If you start at 15 or so, it gets even higher. Just remember that you don’t necessarily go down to 1; you go down 10 times and then back up 10 times, so starting at 15 means your bottom rung will be 5.”

“Well, what’re we waiting for? Let’s do it!”

As the two began their aggressive workout, they couldn’t help but notice a group of high school kids gathering around the nearby tennis courts with a video camera. It was difficult to see what was happening in the 30 seconds between sets, but it looked for all the world like the group was recording some sort of feat of strength.

“What do you think they’re doing over there?” Will panted, stretching his arms against the brick wall, acutely aware that precious seconds of resting time were rapidly dissolving into nothingness.

Aaron shrugged, wiping sweat out of his eyes and squinting for a better look.

“Two of them have jugs of milk,” he ventured. “Could they be doing the Gallon Challenge?”

“They ARE!” Will exclaimed, laughing. “It’s physically impossible. Let’s finish this up so we can watch them fail!”

For the uninitiated, the Gallon Challenge is as simple as it is daunting: you must drink an entire gallon of whole milk within an hour. You lose if you run out of time or if you fail to keep the milk down during the challenge; popular opinion holds that a human stomach simply cannot contain that much milk all at once, nor can it digest it quickly enough to make the necessary room within an hour.

Still, the stakes are typically on the order of “$20 plus bragging rights”, which is about all it takes to make something popular with teenagers and college students.

From the snippets of conversation heard from their workout arena, they learned there were two challengers in the group, both of whom had about a fifth of their milk to go and less than 10 minutes left on the clock.

The cameraman was doing his best to heckle them into chugging what remained of their beverages, while off to one side a guitarist who had previously been relaxing on a park bench and seemed to have no relation to the group at all had begun to play Eye of the Tiger to set the appropriate mood.

Despite their best efforts, the challengers found themselves with quite a bit of milk left as they entered the final minute. Looking at each other with expressions of terror and resignation, they clanked their jugs together and began a desperate race to the finish line.

At first it looked as if both would succeed, but soon one and then the other sputtered, gasped, and choked on the thick liquid, spitting it out and dropping their containers to the ground.

Failure.

Laughing to themselves and remembering similar attempts their own friends had made in the past, Aaron and Will were caught off-guard when a camera swung into their faces.

“You’ve just witnessed the heroic attempt – and colossal failure – of the Gallon Challenge,” the cameraman announced with excitement. “Care to share your comments?”

“Well, it looks like you your boys were drinking 1%,” Will said, raising an eyebrow toward him.

This was clearly not what the cameraman expected, and his expression did nothing to hide his confusion.

“Um…yeah. So?”

“So it wouldn’t have counted even if they’d done it. The Gallon Challenge requires whole milk.”

The two contenders’ eyes widened as they looked at each other, then at Will, and then down at the remnants of their milk seeping into the grass. One turned to the camera, looking stern.

“Mikey, when you put this on YouTube, I want you to do something for me.”

“Yeah?” the teen asked, looking puzzled. “What do you want me to do?”

“Leave that part out.”