Thursday, April 22, 2010

CAMPY

So, how about a boot camp report?

Tuesday morning that sucker came bright and early. Actually it was not bright. It was still dark outside. But the sun was coming up.

I got there a little early and the class queued up and waited on our instructor. There's 18 people total, which apparently is a large class. Once everyone had signed waivers and we were all checked in, we took off.

First stop: the roof. Yes, the roof and no, not to jump. My YMCA has a rooftop patio and pool and outdoor track, which we ran a few laps on to warm up. We did some other stretching and warm ups and then went back inside.

It felt like gym class y'all, without Ms. McCoun. We had to do as many sit-ups and then as many push ups in one minute as we could. And then at the end of the course, we will compare. I did my best. That's one thing I will say about this class - I am bound and determined to get my money's worth, and really get some good results, so I am reminding myself to put forth a lot of effort - this theme comes back up in a minute.

So after the timed stuff, we moved upstairs to the indoor track for the running portion. As many laps as you can do in ten minutes - go! I did better than I thought I would at that portion, with definite room to improve, but still.

We gathered back downstairs for some stretching and ab work and what do you know? It was 7 am. Time to go back to bed! Yes, I went home and got back in bed for an hour (...or so) before getting back up to go to work.

Fast forward through Tuesday to yesterday evening, when I had probably one of the largest events I'll have all year. I was SO TIRED when I got home lat last night. My feet were swollen. It was ridiculous. I went straight to bed, knowing that 5:30 am would come early, but once again - money's worth! - I knew I would not be missing the class.

Ross (my coworker who is taking this class with me) WAS planning to skip today since he is running the half-marathon on Saturday. He didn't want to risk injury, which is a shame because guess what: Today's class was GREAT!

Our normal instructor wasn't there (she gave us warning on Tuesday) so we had a sub. I hope he subs again, though in our normal instructor's defense, what we did on Tuesday was not a true class. But I really liked what we did today.

Once again we headed straight outside. Only this time we weren't on the roof but in the parking lot behind the Y, and this time we stayed outside the whole class. Let me tell you, 6 am on a crisp April morning is a good time to be outside - it felt GREAT out there. I guess this is why they call it "Basic Training" boot camp (as opposed to Farmer's Tan boot camp, which is also being offered at my YMCA if any of you are interested). We had to do a lot of drills and a lot of cardio: three reps of this kind of exercise, then jog a lap around the parking lot. For example, we had to do a series of lunges across the parking lot, jog back around to our starting point, more lunges, jog back back, MORE lunges and then jog a full lap. We did the same thing with "inch worms," which is where you start standing up, bend over and crawl out on your hands until you get to a push up position, do a push up, and then work your feet back up to your hands until you are standing again. Three circuits of these then another lap. And so on and so forth. We did this type of thing most of the class.

The last two drills we did were my favorite. First, we would jog away from the instructor. Then he'd blow the whistle, and we had to turn around and sprint back to him. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I sprinted. This is when the "let's get some results" thing came back into my head. He gave us time to get our heart rate back down and then the same thing again. We did this a few more times - lots of sprinting!

Last exercise was a circuit set-up. He divided us into four groups and each group started in one corner of the parking lot. I started in the "crunches" corner, and then when he blew the whistle, we got up, ran to a different corner, and did a new drill. After one stop in each corner we'd done crunches, jumping jacks, squat jumps and jumped rope.

We ran back inside, did some nice deep stretches, and then class was over. I REALLY liked it, y'all. I didn't even get back in bed when I got home but sat on my couch and watched the Today Show for an hour while I drank my coffee. It was a nice leisurely start to the morning. Except that right now, I am about to fall asleep at my desk.

I think I may like this boot camp thing after all!

3 comments:

  1. I'm inspired just reading that post! By they way, as a side not, I think you have the best blog title.

    =)

    Lacey

    ReplyDelete
  2. I used to love my morning runs (should get back on that). It is so nice to be up and going, and to get that workout out of the way first thing. Glad you're enjoying it!

    ReplyDelete

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