I spent $115 and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

But I'll see you next year.

It’s 6:38 AM and I’ve had 500 milligrams of caffeine. The FDA says you should only have up to 400 over the course of an entire day, but they also say Lucky Charms are “fortified” with vitamins, so forgive me if I’m suspicious.

I’m driving to Pere Marquette Beach in Muskegon, Michigan to compete in a CrossFit event. For those keeping track at home, I made it 56 words before mentioning CrossFit— so I’ll be taking that blue ribbon whenever you’re ready.

The event is called the Fresh Coast Games. It’s a two-day spectacle on the shores of Lake Michigan. Over 600 people will show up to compete. They’ll refer to themselves as “athletes” without the slightest hint of irony — forgetting that, come Monday morning, they’ll all be clutching their lower backs while putting on their slacks and heading to the office.

I am one of them.

I steer my dented Honda Accord into the beachfront parking lot and haul my backpack out of the back seat. The zippers scream against the strain. Inside, there’s a tub of pre-workout powder, a bag of dried mangoes, beef jerky sticks, water bottles, sunscreen, tape, and several overpriced recovery tools I don’t need but bought from Bezos anyway.

I sling my backpack over the shoulder. Then I reach for my actual gym bag.

It’s 7:00 AM. I’ll be here for the next nine hours. Of that, I’ll be physically active for about 45 minutes. To cover those 45 minutes, I’ve packed three pairs of shorts, three pairs of socks, two hats, two knee sleeves, a headband, a pair of grips, a pair of sweatbands, and three t-shirts — knowing full well I won’t wear a single one.

This is the 10th year of the Fresh Coast Games. As I trudge across the sand, a few groups are setting up tents. Down near the water, there’s a walled-off area for the workouts — 15 lanes of fitness, each bookended with a barbell and a climbing rope. It’s a sandy setup for a day of shared masochism, made even more ridiculous by the fact that we all paid $115 to participate in it.

Before the day started, my teammates and I agreed — we’re just here to have fun. This is how formerly athletic men say, “We’re no longer skilled enough to be competitive, but we’d rather pretend like we don’t care.”

We’re one of 45 teams competing today. At least 40 of them had the same conversation. 30 actually meant it.

The first event is at 8:00. By 7:50, my teammates and I are in the warmup area. In a few minutes, we’ll be doing burpees in the sand and sprinting into 69-degree Lake Michigan while the rest of Muskegon County is standing for the opening hymns.

There’s no official warmup, but everyone follows the same script: some squats, a few stretches, a couple minutes of cardio to get the heart rate up. Unspoken choreography.

And that’ll be the day: a workout, two hours under a tent, then another workout. Rinse and repeat. Everyone pulls the same foods from their coolers. Everyone drinks the same Placebo Drinks. Everyone speaks in the same made-up language — “Erg.” “Kip.” “WOD.” Words that sound like English but don’t show up in Webster’s.

After the first workout, I realize I haven’t had caffeine in 18 minutes, so I buy an iced coffee from one of the vendors under the big white tent. While I’m there, I browse the merch. I think about how, in 2012, the rapper Macklemore hit No. 1 with his song Thrift Shop:

“They be like, ‘Oh that Gucci, that's hella tight’
I'm like, ‘Yo, that’s 50 dollars for a t-shirt’...
50 dollars for a t-shirt, that’s just some ignorant bit*h sh*t.”

The t-shirts here are $40. A decade ago, the whole country agreed that was some ignorant bit*h sh*t.. Today, we just ask if it runs true to size and pretend our buddy doesn’t already own it.

Around 11:30, it’s time for the second event — snatches and rope climbs.

What’s a snatch? I’ve been doing this for three years and I still don’t really know.
A rope climb? Yes. Like in middle school gym class.

Before each event, you rifle through your mental checklist: “Do I need knee sleeves for this?” “Should I put on my sweatbands?” Invariably, you look for an excuse to say, “Yes,” because you feel a little cooler when you’re decked out. Of course, mid-workout you forget you're wearing any of it. Then afterward, when the adrenaline fades, you become acutely aware now you’re just a 31-year-old wearing enough gear to get you safely through the Battle of Stalingrad.

A few minutes before go-time, we’re herded into the corral — a small tent next to the workout area. The staff gives us a quick rules briefing before sending us out in a single-file line — 60 guys split up into 20 teams for the heat. The MC barks into the mic. The DJ cranks the bass. The crowd hems and haws hoots and hollers. For a brief moment, you remember what it felt like to play under the lights in 12th grade. It’s glorious.

We take our place in lane 4. At “3-2-1-go,” we churn across the sand. I go first, leaping to grab as high on the rope as I can. I haul myself up, 15 feet above the beach, with a 41-year-old accountant and a 29-year-old English teacher dangling beside me.

I channel my inner Buzz Lightyear and fall with style, stomping into the sand so my teammate can go. Then it’s on to the barbell — 115 pounds — hoisted overhead with a technique that suggests we learned about Olympic lifting by someone reading a Bodybuilding.com blog to a line of elementary schoolers playing “Telephone.”

This cycle continues for eight minutes. Climb. Lift. Climb. Lift.

That’s me in lane 4, losing to the guy in a crop top.

Our goal is to do each movement as many times as possible within the eight minutes. The other teams are trying to do the same. If you asked any of us why we were trying to do that, you would be told, “Because it’s fun,” despite the patently obvious fact that it is not fun.

The buzzer sounds. My teammates and I tell each other we did well. We came in 37th.

We return to our tent, collapse into chairs, and rummage through coolers for something with electrolytes. We lament not doing better and express surprise, glossing over the fact that we practiced a grand total of 11 minutes leading up to this.

“There’s still one more event,” we say. “We can still do well in that one.”

Our tent is one of dozens. Two other teams from our gym are here. Friends and family have come to watch. Maybe 20 of us in total. We sit together. We grin and take a group photo. We sit back down.

As we wait for the third event, Father Time comes and sits with us. Our joints start to stiffen. Eyes glaze over. Monday looms.

The last event comes and goes. I drag my carcass over to the surf and keel over into Lake Michigan. Water rushes into the rips in my hands. It stings.

It’s 3:30 PM. There are still heats left and podium announcements to come. But for us, the day is over. No prize. No medals. No idea who won the whole thing. Just a sunburn, sore quads, and sand that won’t leave my shoes until Christmas.

It’s as anti-climatic as it gets — a few months of anticipation followed by a few countdowns and a few movements. Then it’s time to clamber back into the Honda, pull out onto Beach Street, and get ready for work tomorrow.

The caffeine is starting to wear off.

Anyone else want to drive?

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Editor’s Note: You know how when someone explains the joke, it makes it way less funny? Yeah. That’s what I’m about to do here.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any time, you know this one is… different. No insights, no lessons, nothing profound. Just something that was fun for me to write — and hopefully fun for you to read.

I don’t know what my next blog is going to be about. It might be funny or insightful or sad or written in Pig Latin. I’m just gonna keep writing whatever comes out. Hope you like it.