Work Text:
Logan was running his typical checklists before setting out for another HIIT routine over at the gym. He highly valued maintaining his cardiac and overall health. He wasn’t in the medical field like Janus is and Patton used to be, but he didn’t need those credentials to appreciate it.
Considering he was a 28 year old Homo sapien, his maximal heart rate would be 192 beats per minute. Obviously, he wasn’t keen on achieving nor surpassing exactly that red zone. To say there were diminishing returns, would be an understatement. Remus would take the notion as a challenge… to be sure.
But that value was necessary to calculate his initial target – 65% of that, to be relatively precise. 125, rounded up. He intended to reach that after some warm-up routine and the first lap or two. He would consider this the yellow zone.
Once that holds reasonably steady, his next goal was to go for 87% at the highest intensity. So, 167 BPM. Holding that line for at least a minute. 2 minutes, if he was feeling particularly bold, he was in pretty good shape at this juncture. This would be more of an orange zone.
After the spike in intensity, he would go down to 50% for recovery, or 96 BPM. Rest at that load for 3 minutes, in the proverbial green zone. And then crank the figurative gears back up to the 87% target.
He intended to repeat this for at least 10 rounds. Add more, if energy is willing. Sounded like a plan.
To hit these marks, one of the simpler ways Logan enjoyed were via the exercise bikes. But today, he thought he’ll do some laps around the indoor track. He felt he needed to work in some more devoted arm action, and that would be a reasonable way to hit this workout paradigm. This outline seemed elegant and flawless.
He reviewed all of that while he swapped out his casual shoes for runners, in the locker room.
-
It was exactly noon when he approached the starting line. He popped in some earbuds to his prepared playlists.
He was listening to the mix named “Warm-Up Playlist”. He knew his fellows would jab him for the plainness of it, but the utility simply couldn’t be argued with. It was a selection of songs that started at 50, incrementing up to 100 BPM in tempo. It helped him keep his pace.
He stood to the side, spending a couple minutes doing some preliminary exercises. Ankle circles, leg swings, pelvic loops, arm circles, and hula-hoop jumps. It’s important to keep all the relevant joints stable and readied. Janus would probably congratulate his refreshing fastidiousness, among their motley crew.
After that micro-checklist was completed, he started going toward a brisk walking pace. He was going to check his heart rate after a couple laps to see how close to 65% he was getting.
Halfway into his first lap, he was nearly knocked over by a blur wearing a red crop-top sweatshirt and matching shorts. Roman, clearly not paying attention to what he was doing. Predictably. Logan snorted and rolled his eyes. He had to table his thoughts about his friend’s whole methodology (or lack thereof, as far as he was concerned), or else he’d fall too far out of rhythm!
Roughly a quarter of the way into the second lap, Roman closed in on Logan again, he was going at a jogging pace to a slightly faster walk to match up with Logan. Roman waved and smiled at Logan, “Hey! Didn’t expect to see ya here, Specs!”
Logan thought the voice was Roman-typically cheery. Frankly Logan would be mystified about this man’s energy, if he hadn’t met Remus first. “Salutations.”
“Why are you going so slooow? Wanna race me? I bet I can totally run circles around you!”
“No. I have a plan I intend to stick to, Roman. You know this.”
Roman melodramatically threw up his arms and pouted at Logan, somewhat impressively coordinated to his slow jogging. “Fiiine. I’m off – I want to see how many laps I can get in, like... the next hour. Adiós, for now~”
Roman went from a jog to a run before he could get a response. Logan tutted before refocusing on getting to that 65% - that yellow zone. After the second lap, he drank some water and checked his pulse… hmmm, 55%. It was time to hit a jog. He skipped a few tracks toward that range and worked to match.
By the time Logan completed lap 3, he reached and held at 65%. So, he turned on a 1-minute interval timer and his “HIIT Playlist”, on his phone. Much of the music went at 120 BPM, give or take 30. This phase, he was going to rely on his fitness bracelet to tell him where he’s at, not enough time to do things digitally… rather, manually or with his fingers, to clarify.
He and Remus programmed this thing to flash his percentage progress, freeing up some mental space to not need to calculate that value repeatedly, whenever he looked at the monitor.
He picked up to a run for about another quarter-lap and broke into a full-tilt sprint. Every 20 or so seconds, he glanced at the bracelet, while keeping the majority of his attention to his surroundings and form.
20 seconds, 73%. Not good enough.
40 seconds, 84%. Logan grimaced and pushed his cadence up a bit more.
50 seconds, 86%. For the love of Archimedes… it’s okay. It’s close.
BEEP! 60 seconds, 88%. Orange. FINALLY. Okay, he thought he had a good read now, being consistent for the next sets should be easier.
-
Time to, figuratively, dial things way down. He spent approximately 20 seconds running, 40 more jogging, and BEEP.
He took a couple sips from his water bottle, before spending the remaining 2 minutes going at a walk.
1 minute, 30 seconds, 78%.
BEEP. 2 minutes, 71%.
2 minutes, 30 seconds, 60%.
2 minutes, 50 seconds, 53%.
BEEP. 3 minutes, 49%. Green. Logan sighed to himself, “Margin of error, you have to account for it… anyways.”
-
Round 2.
20 seconds, 76%. Better.
40 seconds, 85%. Almost there.
50 seconds, 87%. Orange, again. Locked on, Logan smiled. Now hold this for 10 more seconds…
BEEP!
-
Second active rest cycle.
Once he got down to a walk again, he observed that Roman was on the opposite end of the track. Still going at what he could only describe as an absurd pace.
Roman closed in when Logan was 2 minutes into this interval. 69%, by the way. Logan groaned, some of Remus’s sense of humor “rubbing off on him”. Why must people ascribe such crudeness to an arbitrary number, he wondered.
Roman was panting quite loudly, shouting down Logan, “Nerd- Nerd’s got some SPEED!”
Logan took a swig of his water bottle. “This is not the first time you’ve seen me manage this.”
Roman looked like he just realized he should have followed suit, smacking his lips and drinking several gulps from his own water supply. “R-riiight.”
“You really should pace yourself. On everything. Honestly.”
“HEY. Only Snakey McSnakerson gets to tell me that!”
“Is he here right now? Am I wrong?”
Roman was back to pouting, “I’m not going to dignify that with a response.”
“But you just-”
Roman cupped his hands over his ears, “Lalala – I can’t hear you!”
Roman ran off ahead of him again. Logan could only shake his head.
2 minutes 55 seconds, 51%.
BEEP. 50%. Green.
-
Round 3.
30 seconds, 80%. Not bad if he said so himself.
40 seconds, 84%. Margin of error.
50 seconds, 89%. Overcompensated somewhat, it would seem. Perhaps Roman’s competitive streak was “infectious”, today.
BEEP! 60 seconds, 91%. Orange, approaching red. Yeah, he was definitely overcompensating.
-
Third rest, fourth active, fourth rest, fifth active intervals... hitting his marks, pleasingly and without incident.
He was on his fifth rest, soon enough.
Once Logan was walking again, he thought he was up for extending his active intervals to 2’, for the next 5 sets. Things have been building palpable fatigue, but very manageable.
Roman still appeared to holding up, a short distance ahead of Logan, at this point. Perhaps he was slowing down. It was a few moments before the distance was closed again.
Roman was drenched, so Logan decided to ask him, “Are you quite alright?”
“Might be getting a little tired now, no big deal.”
Logan recalled some things Patton instructed all of them about and he looked at Roman more carefully as they walked slowly. Roman looked paler than usual. “Hmmm, is your head hurting, perhaps?”
“Maybe a little. Didn’t get enough sleep again, it’s probably that.”
“I imagine it couldn’t be helping but-”
Roman got a little agitated, “But what, Egg Head?”
“Are you nauseous?”
“I’m not ready to puke, not just yet, Bro Ham.”
“May I check your pulse? Or rather, how does it feel?”
“What are you getting at!?”
“Cramps? Dizziness?… I think you are exhibiting the signs of heat exhaustion.”
Roman looked like he was going to be short with Logan, but it was clear now that he was starting to get somewhat wobbly. Logan decided to prompt him again, “Here, let us go to the showers, you need to cool off.”
Roman knew he couldn’t fight Logan in his current state, “Fiiine.”
Logan was annoyed about cutting his workout short, but he could always resume later. This was more important, anyways.
-
Roman was lying on his back on one of the benches in the locker room. His outfit then saturated with cool shower water, holding a battery-power fan to himself that Logan let him borrow.
Logan was at his feet, “How are your symptoms now?”
Roman groaned, “You’re not “the doctor” in our group, would you please stop acting like it.”
“I do not wish to see you in the hospital, Roman.”
Roman sputtered a little, “Yeah well, I’m fine.”
“Stable, I suppose, yes. But I know you enough to know you are not “fine”.”
Roman almost shot up to rebut, but a wave of dizziness forced him back down. “Look. I just didn’t get enough sleep – mind was running a bajillion miles an hour last night. So many IDEAS to write down. And couldn’t get to sleep until way after… you know what? Nevermind.”
Logan did care and frankly saw a lot of similar tendencies between the two brothers. It disturbed him and made him wish he was able to help them get a better handle on their sleeping and general health habits. It seemed as though they were both at very high risk of something serious occurring. But at the same time, he recognized that this was not his area of expertise. All he could really do was try to be there for them.
“Speaking of which... I think I see my wall… approaching… going to-”
Before Logan could latch onto any inquiries about walls, Roman dropped the fan and started snoring. After a brief moment of worry, Logan was reasonably sure this was simply a nap, not a loss of consciousness. To his relief.
Logan thought idly, “I suppose I should at least inform Janus what occurred. Roman might not be fit to drive for a while longer.”
Logan tapped out a message, “Hey. I’m in the locker room with Roman. He likely had an episode of heat exhaustion, today. He appears to be doing okay right now. But I felt that it was worth mentioning it to you.”
It was not even 2 minutes before Janus responded with, “WHAT!?”
“He’s safe, just taking a nap. I suppose he wouldn’t mind if you took him home.”
“… omw. That dumb ass has some explaining to do. With love, of course.”
“Indeed, I shall see you shortly then?”
“Yeah, ttyl… thanks, btw.”
Logan supposed he should stick around to make sure Roman was safe before resuming his own agenda. He had to admit, like with Remus, he did enjoy seeing them get some greatly needed rest.