August 9, 2010 Hot and Humid

Thunder rumbled across the sky around 3:30 this morning. I woke for a moment, wondering if maybe boot camp was going to be canceled again. I hoped it wasn't. Now that I've made it up that hill I want to keep working to try and beat my time. Luckily by the time 4:45 rolled around the thunder was long gone.

Sharon and I drove over to Elver Park through light rain. We figured things would go on as planned since there was no thunder or lightning. The shelter would be fine for our workout. Unfortunately we could also tell the humidity was already obnoxious.

When we arrived a few people there already. The other couple times we went to class when it rained attendance was small. By the time class started, though, there was a pretty good sized class. Maybe 20 people. We also had a different instructor. His name was Will. I'm not sure whether or not he had ever taught in the shelter before. He told us that instead of our usual circuits we would stay in one place today and do all our exercises there. We would devote 15 minutes to upper body, 15 minutes to legs, and 15 minutes to core. First, though, we had to warm up. In this heat and humidity that sounds odd, but we had to get the blood flowing and the muscles ready for what was to come. What came, though, was mosquitoes. Many of us had our insect repellent on today and those pesky insects went right through it. Even Will asked if anybody had any bug spray. I hate mosquitoes!

The workout was quite a bit like what I teach at Princeton Club. Still, it was tough. We concentrated first on the upper body. I'm still amazed how heavy those 20 lb weights can get after a while. And the push-ups are still quite the challenge. But, I am happy to say, I stayed on my toes and continued to do them all through the alloted time. Woo hoo for me! My biceps are sore as I'm sitting here though so I know we did some awesome upper body today.

As part of our leg workout we did some side hops. Those really worked the calves. We also added a high jump at the end of it. I realized I could not jump very high. Definitely need some work on that. I need to find more reasons to jump for joy. Maybe that will help.

Our core was last and we did some "around the world" work as Will called it. We were in the plank position and then would alternately hold up one arm, then the other and then the same with the legs. We also did some russian twists and elbow to knee crunches. When Will told us we were done I couldn't believe it! Class flew by today.

Will said he wouldn't hold it against me that I was wearing one of my Wolverine shirts. We talked about the renovations to the stadium and how I felt that the improvements would really help the sound levels in Michigan Stadium. I'm excited for football season as I just love going to the games in Ann Arbor. But that's a different post I guess.

Have a good one.

Roger