I Did a Plank Every Day for 100 Days and Then This Happened: I Fought a Horse

I haven’t been in a fight since college and that was with humans. I remember a couple of guys broke it up, screaming, “Derick, it’s not fair! He’s not worth it!” And they pulled Derick off of me. I’ve been having a couple of beers with the guys who pulled him off of me every Friday at the Horse Haven Tavern since that fight in 2005. One of the fellas, Hank, has been going through a workout phase. As you can tell by my big fight from 17 years ago, I’m a competitive person, so I got sucked into a workout phase too.

I did a plank every single day for 100 days in a row. Hank said planks were the hardest part of his workout so I wondered if it was actually hard, or just hard for Hank. I figured after 100 days of planks I’d get a stronger core, more toned abs, and all my friends’ admiration, like Hank was getting for losing weight. I didn’t have weight to lose so I was already way ahead of him.

Day 6

I met up with my buddies at The Horse Haven Pub and first told the fellas about my plank challenge and they were like, “Cool, dude.”

There’s nothing like being supported by your buddies, especially when your arms and abs are sore. Craig, feeling the competition, had some questions. “You just started working out? For the first time ever?” he asked. Craig has been working out almost every day for fifteen years, or since he was a child or since before he could walk. He’s jacked. And I know he’s bitter that he has to work so hard to have the body he wants. He goes to the gym every day, and you can tell just by looking at him. It’s really depressing. All he wants to talk about his the gym, so he and Hank have had this special workout bond lately. They’re in a cult thing. That’s why I didn’t bother getting offended by his condescending tone. I just said, “No dude, I started five days ago. Only 95 more to go.” Poor Craig has his whole life to go.

Day 19

On day 19, I saw the guys again at The Horse Haven Pub and told them I was on day 19, and they were like, “Day 19 of what?” I had to remind them I was doing a plank every day for 100 days. Their forgetfulness hurt my feelings a little but then they were like, “Oh, yeah, nice dude,” and then I felt better. The conversation after that was mostly about the price of fuel, which is less exciting but I guess it was on their minds.

Day 35

On day 35 the fellas and I met at the Horse Haven Pub again. When I lifted my pint, I flexed my triceps a bit but nobody said anything, I guess they were embarrassed. Also I had to hold my pint way down by my belt buckle to get my tris to flex. Maybe I should have tried showing off my biceps. I’ll remember that for next time. Then the fellas got to talking about the price of fuel again, and how they were considering hybrid cars. It was surprising that nobody cared about my plank challenge even though they asked about Hank’s “couch to 5k” program every week. Even when I tried to bring up my planks again, Hank stayed on the fuel topic, and pointed to the lot outside and joked that it would be cheaper to drive a horse than a car.

I looked out the window over the fields, to the literal horse haven that the bar was named for. To be clear, it’s a haven, not heaven — these horses are alive in paradise, not dead in paradise. Dead in paradise is how I was feeling while being ignored by my best friends in my favorite bar. I didn’t hold it against them for too long. They all have wives and coworkers and even other friend groups where they can spread their feelings around. I only have them. They are aware and honored that they’re my only friends. They mention it a lot and even ask why I don’t have other friends or a girlfriend. I think they feel a loving responsibility to keep me in their lives, like a dog they adopted, and I return the favor by showing up here every Friday to cheers them. Loyalty. I sipped my beer and wondered how many beers we’d sip together as a group.

While I waited for the conversation to turn back to my planks, I watched the horses prance around and I noticed that some just stood there, planking, like me. Craig was about to say something about the earth’s dependence on fossil fuels but luckily I intercepted the conversation and saved us from boredom.

“I’ve got a lot in common with horses.” I said, grabbing their attention with a hook about horses rather than planks. “For example, we’re always doing planks.”

My friends laughed a bit uneasily like they weren’t sure if I was joking. Not at all! Sure, horses sleep in plank position, but I was on day 35. That’s horse level planks. We wavered back to non-renewable energy and how Dave’s wife is making him shop with reusable bags and drink coffee from reusable travel mugs rather than get paper at the cafe every day. He said it actually wasn’t that bad when he got used to it, and actually he prefers using his own mug now because it keeps the coffee hotter. He told us he’d been doing this for over 100 days and he looked at me specifically like I would care the most for some reason.

Day 50

On day 50, the bartender and owner of Horse Haven Pub, Neil, asked me to stop flexing my biceps and abs at him. I guess he was uncomfortable feeling so much jealousy at work. I’m happy to do what he tells me because he’s a little scary with his tattoos, eye patch, and gun.

I celebrated day 51 (over the halfway mark) by holding my plank for 51 seconds. Nobody called or texted. It was surprisingly one of the loneliest days of my life. But at least I had my plank to hold. I’m sure if the horses knew, they’d be impressed.

Day 62

On day 62 I was late for our weekly hangout at Horse Haven bar because I had been holding my plank for 60 seconds (I did 30 seconds twice, so technically two planks today). Nobody seemed to mind or care at all. When I walked in, Neil was handing Hank his beer. I said “Hank, dude, sorry I was late.”

He said, “You’re not really late, it’s still happy hour.”

“Yeah, I was late because I was doing a sixty second plank. On day 62.”

“Is that up from 30, then?”

“Yup. Doubled it.”

He cheersed me but then his eyes found our buddies and he moved on quickly. I followed him and couldn’t help but notice his pants were looking a bit saggy where they used to be a bit tight in the thighs. So embarrassing.

I joined the guys at the window booth like we always sit, and fixed my gaze wistfully on the horses. I waited for someone to ask me what was wrong so I could tell them I was sad that they didn’t care about my plank challenge.

Hank did me a favor, then. “The plank champion over here did over 60 seconds today,” he said.

Everyone cheersed me and kinda laughed, probably embarrassed that they couldn’t do it too.

“Thanks for celebrating, guys,” I said. “I feel like you don’t care sometimes.”

“To us it feels like it’s the only thing you care about,” Craig observed, correctly through his perfectly groomed beard and square jaw. The conversation moved on. I guess these guys were nervous about climate change. They said they had so many questions. My question: who cares? If the world is ending you might as well do planks! I reaffixed my horse gaze. “By day 100 I’ll be better than a horse,” I said.

They stopped talking about doom and gloom for once to focus on me.

“Better than a horse at what?” Hank said. He sounded annoyed, which I understood because I was being cocky and still beating him at being fit.

“Just better, you know? I’ll be able to win against one.”

“Like in a race?” Dave asked, curiously.

“No, in a plank contest. It just occurred to me what I’ve been training for all this time.”

“This whole month?”

“It’s been 62 days. And on day 100, I’m going to beat that horse at its own game.”

“Which horse?” Dave asked. “Or should you just go up against all the horses?”

“Yeah, me versus all the horses in the field on day 100. Let’s go!”

Now all the sudden, everyone was interested in my planks, saying things like, “You’re gonna get destroyed.” It’s like they’re only interested in topics of destruction.

Then they were placing bets on the horses and against me, which hurt my feelings again, but was also okay because being the underdog always makes for a better victory and a better story. Neil, the bartender, also bet against me, which I understood because he’s obsessed with the horses and had a crush on the lady who owned them. And I knew this would be a good story, which is why I called the newspapers and Sports Illustrated with the date. Only 39 more days until these guns took down those horses.

Day 75

On day 75, I was feeling super strong and I took a selfie, just for me. There was no difference in my physique, but for once I was smiling in the picture — a little bit deviously!

Day 80

On day 80, I saw the local newspaper had taken it upon themselves to write about me and how I was going to fight the horses. I wish they’d reached out for my comment because they made me sound like I was some country lunatic. But hey, when you’re this committed to fitness, you’re gonna sound crazy!

Day 90

On day 90, I started listening to music while I planked because it was getting so boring. I wish I had thought of doing this 90 days ago.

Day 99

On day 99, the fellas and I raised our glasses to my horse fight. They each made up funny ironic names for the event like “The Stupidest Thing He’s Ever Done!” and “60 Seconds of Pure Comedy Genius!” and “Watching a Horse Kick My Ass!”

Day 100

On the morning of the 100th day I went to the Horse Haven field to size up my opponents. They were huge. In planking, it’s actually advantageous to be smaller because you have less body to hold up. One advantage they had over me was that they could lock their knees. Their front and back legs could do this. I wasn’t going to be using my knees at all.

It was anyone’s game.

Loretta, the nice farmer lady who owned the horses strutted in her boots out to the fields. She offered to bring the horses closer to me for a real side by side competition, and I told her I’d appreciate it but we should wait for the people from Sports Illustrated to arrive. Hank pointed out they probably wouldn’t make it because they’d be so focused right now on the swimsuit edition. If I had thought of that before I would have packed my swimsuit.

We decided to get started, and we nominated Neil to keep time since he’d had practice with time keeping (for example, he always closed the bar at exactly 11 PM, even if you could have handled more beer). I got in position, cleverly avoiding manure. I had a huge advantage over the horses because they were probably tired from being in plank position all day and perhaps through the night before and their entire lives.

I heard Neil’s voice yelling: “On your mark! Get set!” BANG!

He shot his gun into the air and I yelped from being startled! My body shook but I stayed steady. I thought he was just going to say “go,” but he shot a gun and scared the full hell out of me. I could hear Loretta hollering about something and the sound of what must have been the guys stomping and running in circles from the excitement. They sounded heavier than I thought they ever could — no offense to Hank who was down 20 pounds. It was tough to keep my plank going with that feeling of an earthquake underneath me. I could hear my friends, yelling, cheering, screaming my name, nearly in a panic. I waited for Neil to yell that time was up, and even got suspicious that we’d gone over one minute as my arms started to shake. I turned my head slightly to look for a sign of the time. All I saw was my friends stomping over a dried path that used to be a creek. Finally, I heard Neil’s voice, and it was getting closer, louder.

“GET UP!” he screamed, grabbing me by the shirt and pulling me toward the fence. Sixty seconds flies by when you’re having fun. I leaned against the fence.

“Well, how’d I do? How’d the horses do?” I chugged some water from a bottle and I looked out at the field to see Loretta with her lasso trying to get her horses back in line. They were running mad! Screeching and bleating and stomping. Hank chimed in, yelling, “Neil’s damn gun scared ’em off. We’ve been chasing ’em while you were just lying there!”

I couldn’t believe it.

“I won? They didn’t plank at all? I won?!” I turned to make sure everyone could hear me and I saw one of the horses jump the fence and run toward the bar, like he wanted to be the first one to buy me a drink. What a graceful loser.

I won.

But the best part is: it’s day 100. I don’t have to do a plank ever again. I already have all my friends’ admiration.