Late-night antics in the fight of the fittest

[Li Feng/China Daily]

As I write this, I am preparing to commit the foulest of deeds, one I have plotted for nearly two days. It's approaching the bewitching hour, and a few kilometers away my fiercest rival is, I hope, about to fall into the arms of Morpheus. When he awakes, the deed will have been done. It's the last day of February in a leap year, and I am about to get the most out of the extra time to make a leap he will never forget.

The thing that brings us two together－and pits us against one another－is our membership of a group that does physical exercises and keeps a monthly ranking of who is doing best on a smart phone app.

It ranks us all by the number of minutes we do exercises, handing out the appropriate accolades at the end of the month. Right now I am No. 3, having been overtaken by my rival just two days ago. Since then he has not stopped bragging about his having overtaken me.

The app, called Keep, allows everyone to keep an eye on what exercises everyone else has done, what time they did them and, if an exerciser chooses to allow it, where the exercise was done. It gently guides you into a two-week training plan, and if in the evening you have failed to complete your day's exercises the app lets you know, not so gently, by sending out a hectoring beep.

Personal insight

I and 11 friends are in the group, and by being in it our lives have become an open book. Going by social media posts I began to think their lives are a lot more active and interesting than mine, but I now realize we are not much different from one another. For example, between 8pm and 11pm on Valentine's Day, as the rest of the world was out on the town celebrating love, I and several of my Keep accomplices, sad souls that we are, were at home giving tender loving care to our butts and abs.

But this app is doing much more than giving me an insight into my physical condition; it has also given me acute insight into how I think. Generally I and my friends see me as the model of meekness and diffidence, but I can now see that when it comes to competition I am as tough as they come. If you are in my way, look out, because I want to be No. 1.

Until a few weeks ago I could not even do a plank, but now I can do at least three in quick succession, holding myself in place each time for 30 seconds, almost effortlessly.

One evening, when I was in second spot and realized the person in third spot was closing in on me, I trained for an hour trying to build muscles on my belly, arms, back, legs and hips. Previously I had given my muscles little attention since graduating from college more than a decade ago.