So the day started off nice. I took the day off and slept in. In the afternoon, the family went out to see Tangled. Funny flick. Then 5PM rolled around and it was time to head out to Boot Camp. I purposely didn’t think too much about it all day… I didn’t want to psych myself out.
My wife and I got there early-ish… 5:25 or so… the class started at 5:45. We chatted with the instructor for a while. Nice guy but serious. He’s the kind of guy that could get someone who was bigger than him to back down. If you hit him, you’d hurt your hand. He said good things about my wife’s tenacity in the class. I was still pretty calm at this point. I… got… this!
Little by little more people started to show up. Hard to tell fitness level by just a look. Two of the students had awesome T-Shirts from the Boot Camp that read “Your Workout is my Warm Up”. I really liked them… this coming from a guy who thoroughly enjoys some trash talk. There was talk about doing some running. While more folks came in, the instructor started moving equipment around the room. It didn’t take a genius to understand that he was setting up 5 stations for a circuit. Heart rate starting to go up a little bit.
Class was underway and started off in a seemingly innocent way. Stretching with a partner. Wife and I were split up for the class… likely to keep us from colluding to make the hour an easy one.
The we started the warm up… OMFG… it was 20 minutes (I think… time seemed to stop). 20 minutes of intense burn, poor balance and lactic acid creation. The instructor called what we were doing Plyometrics… I have other names for it. I kept thinking back to the T-Shirts… I think the two women who wore them choose the shirts as a form of subconscious warning… I missed that sign.
Once the so-called warm up was done, we moved on to the circuits. There were 10 lb medicine balls, a 15 lb bar, kettle bells, 5lb hand weights and an evil wheel with handles. Simple objects to most people… now main characters in fitness themed nightmare. I got through the circuit. It wasn’t perfect. I need work on the form and endurance. The one thing that made me feel better is the fact that it was still hard for folks who have been coming to the class forever and sometimes come 2x per day. There were people WAY more fit than me… there were maybe 3-4 people less fit… so I got a lot of room to move.
When the never-ending circuit was finished we stretched some more… a repeat of some of the stuff we did at the start of the class. I’ve done lots of stretches back in the day (by the day I mean the period between 1980 and 1990 when I played a ton of soccer). I miss those days… I would characterize what we did as extreme stretching. How can stretching hurt… this guy found a way. Clearly, everything was going to be hard.
We ended with planks… there were 21 people in the class and we had to hold the plank position as we all counted off… if anyone messed up we started again… holding a plank for 21 seconds is pretty freaking hard (for me). It took 6 iterations before we got it all the way around. I have a funny feeling that the instructor would have found something wrong regardless and 6 iterations was the minimum.
I think the planks is where the class ended… the time between doing them and putting on my speakers is a blur. My wife drove us home… I was nauseous. I barely spoke. I had some meatloaf at 2PM… missed breakfast cause I slept in. Everything hurt. All my limbs weighed a ton. I popped to Robax as a preventative measure and still need to stretch some more. Chiropractor tomorrow to start off the day.
I ate after I got home and now I feel better. I’m looking at going on Wednesday. I think I can take it for the 60 minutes. Nothing could be harder than today. One down… not looking forward to Day 2.
Dumo Goes To Boot Camp 