Bootcamp: And Thus It Begins... AGAIN!

I took these past two weeks off from Boot Camp for the holidays.

This may have been, hands down, the biggest mistake of my life.

Today was my first day back and it was a killer. I decided to ease back into it by going to class at noon as opposed to my regular 730am. Eighteen other Warriors decided the same thing-- with 19 people, it was one of the biggest classes I've ever been in.

These classes are usually really hard but really fun-- Alex and Ruben split us in half (the group, that is, although I personally felt split into pieces by the time it was all over!) and kept us moving NON-STOP. Really. A lone water break turned out to be the only chance to catch a breather today.

When the warm-up seems like it lasts an hour, you know it's going to be a rough class as the warm-up really only spans the first 10-15 minutes. Hundreds of crunches, squat thrusts and lunges later, I was wishing I'd bailed on xmas and just camped out at the gym for the past two weeks!

3x over the five walls, 2 rounds of monkey bars and hurdles and a couple of trips up the stairs with little rest reminded me that I pay these guys to kick my ass and, (sadly?), they're really good at their jobs.

I don't feel like going to Boot Camp is so much of a New Year's resolution for me, as I'd been in a steady rhythm of going 3-4x/week leading up to the holidays. I figured maybe the turn of the calendar was the reason for the large class, but lots of familiar faces were back.

One guy even brought his kids today-- Glen's two teeny tiny daughters sat quietly on the sidelines near the last tall wall while we all tried to remember not to scream "FUCK!" while climbing over it. When class was over, it was their turn to "play". It was really fun to see the excitement with which they attacked the course-- the older daughter (they were probably 8 and 6 or so) flew over the hurdles like it was her job and the younger one was right behind her. Ruben helped one of them climb the rope at the end of the obstacle course. She noted that the rope at her school has knots (of course I leaped on that, telling Ruben that maybe we should get some knots in our rope!). They tell you to grab the rope up high, then pull your legs up into your chest. This little girl actually pulled her knees UP TO HER CHIN. When I'm "climbing the rope", it's all I can do to get my knees past my hips!

A couple of my friends and I have made a pact to attempt to go 5x/week for as long as we can-- which for me might mean half a week! I'm going again tomorrow at 930 if I wake up and have not died. By this time next week, we'll see if the fiver sticks!