Week 4 Day 1

Bootcamp was rough, as per the usual. We had to find partners that were roughly our size. First time we actually had to partner up. The only stipulation was that the person had to be about the same height/weight. since tc is shorter than me, she was out of the running. in no time i had partnered up with some dude. never even noticed he was in the class before, probably because i was so focused on how bad i was hurting.

at any rate, the first half of the night was spent on a hill with our partner. i really got to know my partner pretty quickly, especially since i had to carry him up the hill twice on my back, he carried me twice, we leap frogged, and did a little chariots-of-fire-pull-on-their-shirt thing. the hill workout ended with a grueling plank hold, which really irritated by left tricep (luckily it felt better the next morning.

the second half of the night was strength training. push ups, squats, unassisted sit ups, burpees, and crunches. each exercise 20 times, then cycle through with 15, and 10 reps for each exercise on the next two cycles.

tc has a new phrase "it's under the cheese", because of her craptastic day and resultant verbiage, i decided the image above seemed perfect.

End of week three

Bootcamp: week 3, day 3

Amen! No direct upper body work today. Instead we worked on running endurance.

We ran up to the harbor off Diversy and found ourselves on a grassy knoll. Oh yeah, the DI was secretly trying to kill someone. The task at hand was to run to a light pole, head up the embankment, run to the next light pole, down the embankment, to the next pole, and so on. Did 18 lights poles 2 times, then finished easy with just 6 or 7 light poles. In between each run was a short set of leg and core strength exercises (e.g. lunges, crunches, squats).

Now I'm looking forward to a couple days rest. I think I'll try a little run on Sunday, couple miles maybe. I'd like to get back to having long run Sundays. With Bootcamp and all, it's gonna take a while until I can get up to my ideal Sunday morning 10 miler.

Hot 100

Bootcamp week 3, day 2.

Today was something called "Hot 100". The crazy ass drill instructor told us we'd be doing 100 of each exercise. Now is a good time to note that when I say 100, I actually mean 200, because the DI uses two (or sometimes four) counts. What did we work out you may ask? All upper body, and pretty much almost all chest. Push ups, wide push ups, tricep push ups, inverted push ups, one armed planks, and some weird back and shoulder exercise done lying down.
So why the "70" image? Because that's as far as we made it in the 45 minutes we had together. Now in all honesty I should have posted a picture of somewhere around 40...cuz that's about all i did. After the first set of exercises, I was feeling it. After the second, I was cashed. By the third cycle I had started to pause during the sets. Even though I didn't do all 70 (or 140 if were being honest) I did as many as my body would allow. There was a lot of shaking and sweating, and oddly a lot of heavy breathing. I was panting like a dog in August, very strange indeed.

Cest la vie. We'll see what tomorrow holds, but I can only hope it doesn't involve my upper body because I dont think it can take it.

Bootcamp - Day 5....harsh

today was no exception, bootcamp kicked my butt again. per the usual, the warm-up run was too fast for me. today the exercises focused on building strength so there were a lot of push ups and squats and the like. the picture is just to make me feel better, because i feel like ass right now.

i think tomorrow is an endurance day, we'll see.

bootcamp

OK, let me preface this with...it seemed like a good idea at the time. tc and i signed up for bulldog bootcamp. see, we haven't been running like we used to and tc thought it'd be a great way to get in shape by august. city chase is in august in case you've forgotten. knowing it's not that far away, we signed up for a 3 day per week, 12 week fitness program where drill instructors take some twisted pleasure in kicking our collective asses.

it's now into week two, luckily the very first day was just an assessment, so it didn't hurt too bad. it did however smack me in the face with my out-of-shapeness.

today was all about speedwork. we sprinted multiple times to cone placed at varying distances. 10 to the nearest, 6 to the middle, 3 to the farthest cone. each sprinting session was separated by core strengthening work (e.g. crunches, mountain climbers, supermans).

clearly i am not a machine, like i thought i was...cuz today kicked my ass. tc is soooooo gonna owe me drinks.