July 2, 2010

The hill! The hill! What a workout! Our cardio portion of boot camp took place on the hill. Well I wanted a challenge. This was really meeting it head on. We warmed up first with a jog to the hill and then running around the garbage cans that were set out for the fireworks at Elver Park. Sharon said something to me that I can't remember but for some reason it made me think of a line from Golden Girls. It was the episode where Rose wants Miles to be more exciting. She signs them up for skydiving. She liked the idea of dropping down towards the field, watching the cows grow larger and larger. Miles asks her if he can't just run towards her and Moo? Guess you had to be there but that really cracked me up.

Anyways, back to class. We started by running up the hill for 30 seconds and then resting 15. The we would do it again. I didn't mind this because, surprisingly, I did pretty well. By the time we finished I almost made it to the top. Then we jogged back down. Next we did the same thing but for a shorter time. 15 and 5. The problem for me was that I couldn't just stop. I had to slow to a walk and then stop, but by the time I stopped we were running again. Still I got pretty high on the hill, which didn't seem so great since we were supposed to jog back down again. My jog became a walk back down. I was glad to see so many other campers had the same definition of jog. Next we shuffled sideways up the hill, switching sides when Dustin yelled "Switch" (as if you couldn't figure that out). Then the jog (walk) back down. One final exercise. We had to run to the top of the hill and down, and then back to the shelter for water. This was really hard now! I went as far as I could, but finally had to walk part of the way. It was interesting to me that it usually is my quads that get tired and make me start to walk but they were up to the challenge. This time it was my hamstrings that got the best of me. Maybe that is a sign of progress that my quads are getting stronger. Sharon, of course, with her great endurance jogged the whole way! She says that her jog is her sprint.

We moved next to the strength training. We had to grab out mats and some weights. Since the weights were for abs ( I thought) we just used Sharon's 10 lbs. We were in partners with 1partner using the mat and the other doing calf raises. Sharon insisted on doing the mat first so I did the calf raises. Anybody actually believe that? We did sixty calf raises, 10 slow and then 10 fast. I don't do this one very frequently so my calves burned pretty easily but I managed it. With the mat we did a crunch up, weights held against our shoulders and then pressed up with the weights once we reached the top of the crunch. Unfortunately I couldn't crunch all the way up. So once I got in the up position I stayed there for the presses :( but the next time we went through the rotation and I was on crunches again I was able to do it better. I was trying to keep my heels on the ground and we were supposed to have them off the ground. Dang I guess I didn't listen very well. But I got it better the second time.

We finished with core strengthening exercises. Seated russian twists, swimmers, and finally a front plank. By the time we got to the 90 second front plank I had nothing left. But I didn't give up. Mind over muscle. I held it as long as I could, dropped down for a second and then made myself get back up. Even if I couldn't hold it long I kept getting back up. That was a really looong 90 seconds!

On the ride home Sharon and I talked about how much we are enjoying camp. It is motivating, challenging and everyone is so nice and supportive. We also realize that in this economy money is tight for everyone, but the money spent on this boot camp has been worth every penny!

Have a great and safe 4th of July!

Roger