The op lasted 43 tortuous hours. It wasn’t trying because of the length – capsuleers were accustomed to going months without exiting their pod. The shocks of adrenaline and serotonin that kept your body going easily beyond regular human limits. No, it was trying for two reasons:

1. The op was not the success the CEO thought it would be. Surprise, surprise. I had been saying that for months to deaf ears.
2. I was benched, forced to watch it all unfold without being able to do a single thing to mitigate the damage.

I’m not so arrogant as to think that had I been there things would’ve gone differently. It was rather that I was the most intimately familiar with the plan. I had done all the risk assessment. I had worked out all the alternate plans of attack. I listened silently, hacked into the fleet’s comms, but one direction only. I would like to say it was rewarding when a pilot mentioned how everything I had predicted had come to pass, but it was just depressing. Maybe the CEO would listen to my experience next time.

I could only take so much, and went to the gym to unwind. I was doing a chest/triceps tempo workout. I figured tempo would mean lighter weights, faster pace, and I was in the mood to get myself going in such a way. Much to my surprise, what tempo meant in this instance was negative sets, as in six seconds up, six seconds down, per rep.

It was a brutal and grueling workout. It made me happier than you could imagine.