It’s not that the number 100 changes how big it is depending on where it’s at—it obviously doesn’t. It’s constant. 100 is 100. This is a fairly well-established fact. The perceived size of 100, however, is directly proportional to the effort involved. 100 steps to the bakery? Depends how hungry you are. 100 steps to the lavatory? How badly do you need to get there? 100 steps from your loved one in a movie or TV show, with happy music playing all around? You’re likely to get shot so you probably want to remember to mind your surroundings instead of running at top speed towards each other, ignoring the deadly monster you were just fighting. Sure, running towards each other with arms open and silly grins makes for a more exciting/sad show, but I highly suggest you proceed with caution. Then, when you’ve conquered the evil aliens or whatever you can re-create the moment on some lonely beach with a stereo and a cardboard cutout of the evil monster.

So my boss decided that we should have a push up contest at work. The goal is to work up to be able to do 100 push ups at a time. Yes, 100 push ups all at once. Well, not really all at once, but rather in fairly quick succession, one after the other.

Two days ago we did an exhaustion test to see how many push ups we were capable of doing at one time. The purpose of this was, naturally, to humiliate the weak. No, not really. The purpose was to place each person into a workout plan designed for their level of strength/weakness. I was able to do 17 push ups before collapsing on the floor, completely wasted. While that may be a slight exaggeration (the part about being completely wasted, not the 17 push ups), the fact remains the same that 100 seems like an awful lot.

We do push ups every other day. So yesterday I reveled in keeping my hands where they belong: not on the floor doing push ups, but rather stuffing myself with food.

Actually, I didn’t actually eat much yesterday. But this morning I had a smoothie from Jamba Juice. It was amazing. And then I did 45 push ups. The 45 were spread out over 5 sets, but still. 100 is still a big number.