DAY TWO: OMG

Just let me say OMG. Whatever warm feelings I thought I had about feeling cool at boot camp on day one were immediately dislodged this morning.

I can’t even be creative here so I’m just going to outline what we had to do.

Run about a quarter mile to vacant parking lot. Get in a circle with your group and do calisthenics, many, many exercises designed to get us warmed up. While doing this we all had to tell the group something about ourselves.

I’m not gonna lie, I was tired just doing those warm up exercises. I know, it’s shameful, but there it is. I was already winded.

After the warm up we ran again, longer this time, but I’m not sure how long…half a mile? I dunno. We ran to a grassy area where stations were set up with lighted cones so we could see where we were going in the dark. We had to go around to these stations and do workouts in smaller groups with about ten in each group. Even getting from station to station was a workout.

No rest.

No rest.

Just move and jump and lay down and hold your legs up and lay on your side and hold your legs up. Now raise one leg in the air and hold it while you’re in plank position. Don’t put it down. (I had to put it down) Now the other. Now side plank. Hold yourself up. That was an example of what happens at the stations. Then we would run to the next station for more and by the way, I hate jump ropes. Jumping rope sucks when you’re already tired.

And when you’re through jumping rope please run some more.

I was dying as I moved through the circuit and felt some hope in my chest as we came back around to the station where we had begun. I thought that meant we were at the finish line. I thought it was nearly time to go home. But I was wrong. We got to the station only to find they had more work for us. We had to do a second circuit. My legs were shaking as I tried to do more lunge squats. My abs hurt because most of the exercises focused on our abs today.

“JUST THINK ABOUT THOSE BIKINIS!!!”

Yeah, right.

It was as I was moving through the second round of circuits that I realized something, never ending workouts would be a great punishment in hell.
I was seriously dying and wondering what I’d gotten myself into. Someone’s made a HUGE mistake!!!

But you know what? There is a girl in the class. She’s very large. She was in our smaller group at the start of today’s class when they made us introduce ourselves which is how I know anything about her at all. She’s from the Bahama’s and this is her second month of Boot Camp. She’s been through the boot camp once and has decided to do it again.

Just knowing that inspired me. As hard as it is for me, it must be harder for her and she didn’t quit. More importantly, that crazy girl signed up for more!!! So I noticed that she was always trying her best with everything. I tried my best too. It wasn’t stellar by a long shot. I think I even cast out a disparaging comment about jump ropes to a fellow camper as we approached the jump ropes for a second time. I felt bad about that because it’s not very encouraging to my fellow boot camper to be like that. I made a mental note to keep any grumbling to myself. Besides, a positive attitude absolutely makes a difference.

I returned home sore and had a hard time going up the stairs. My body hurts all over, my arms, legs, backside, back, abs.

But the thing I like about today’s boot camp is…I made it through and….well…that’s about it. I made it through and I feel good about that.