Joanna and Naomi do Bootcamp

Today we focused on legs. Run run run, skipping, lunges and squats – who knew such harmless sounding exercises could be so evil? By the end of the class, we were both feeling nauseated – not the best feeling in the world, even though you know there’s nothing in your stomach, so really, what’s going to happen…but it still feels like ugh.

We’ve both come to the conclusion that we will not be joining the next boot camp group. I’m sure we came to our own conclusions on that. I’m not shunning it because I don’t like it – energy wise, it’s great, it’s nice to be outside (well, most of the time), I’ve become super organized (well, most of the time. Unlike today, wherein I forget lunch, breakfast and my wallet at home. Smooth.) etc, etc…

But when you’re debating on whether or not you can do something, without breaking the 9 pm curfew you’ve imposed on yourself, especially after a few weeks, bootcamp wears thin. Very thin. It would be nice to have a life past 8 pm.

Then again, that’s only for 5 day a week bootcamp. I think you can do “drop-in” type class…hrmmm…

Tomorrow, we’re talking about feelings. No, lies. We’re talking about nutrition. And I’m sure the trainers will have us in a plank position, or headstands, or something else as ridiculous while we do it.

I didn’t go again, today. It’s getting pretty bad. And I’ve heard it’s going to rain for the next 5 days, so that means a wet Monday-Wednesday next week to look forwards to. I’m being punished for my lax attendance.

This does mean I’ll try to get to spinning tomorrow, as one of our trainers (who actually wasn’t working this week) also runs dryland courses at the municipal gyms. She’s pretty hardcore, so I’ve been begging off her classes while bootcamp is on – but when I’m not going to bootcamp…something’s got to give.

bootcamp:19, Joanna: -2, impending ass-kicking workout: sooner than I’d like.

That’s right. I didn’t make it to bootcamp this morning. Not going was actually pretty spectacular – I read the newspaper, I washed the dishes after breakfast, instead of letting them sit all day, and I didn’t have to shower at work. Okay, so it was spectacular in a morning-type of way. It’s not showy like a Vegas spectacular, but it has it’s own type of quiet wonderful-ness. 

Speaking of work, I just started a new job on Monday that has radically changed my morning routine. I’m fond of routines, so it did slightly stress me out. I now drive directly to work post bootcamp, with my day clothes, breakfast and lunch packed, and hopefully a towel. It’s more organization than I’d like; since I can’t hardly swoop back home for a hairbrush, or pair of socks…And strangely enough, the hour of bootcamp is now a calm oasis in the middle of my mornings.

How did that ever happen? I wake up, rushed to be organized. I worry about arriving on time. Then I stop thinking for an entire hour, apart from the stray snarky comment and eye roll to show the trainers they’re not the boss of me. Then I hurry back to my car, dreading the thought that a car accident could be somewhere along my route, slowing me down. And I haven’t gotten over the weirdness of showering at work. 

Bootcamp: 0, Joanna: plus one million sleep-is-awesome points, the sound of one hand clapping: priceless.

Ah, the week of no posts. I knew this would start happening, the laziness would creep up until days had past without a word written. I need a bootcamp for posting – “sit down and give me 300 words!”

Week three and there’s an end in sight! We’re at the hump, it’s all downhill from here. Naomi and I have started to compare our progress after ‘camp, in what has to be the most neanderthal method possible.

You guessed it: a round robin of arm wrestling, Friday night. Two guys, three girls, and one table. No clear winner; Naomi assumed her bf wasn’t unleashing his full strength, she and I came to a stalemate on the left arm, and no one really kept track of who beat who.

Back to camp -there were many push ups this week. How many? I kept count to try to focus my mind from the pain. 106 on Wednesday, 155 on Thursday. That’s right. That’s more than the summation I’ve done in my entire life. I’m not even exaggerating. I couldn’t figure out why the sides of my ribs, directly beneath my shoulder blades were stiff on Thursday morning, until we started pushups again. Ah yes, I thought- that’s the reason.

We’ve started to intersperse sprints into our morning jogs, and have amped up the number of burpies, straight arm forwards and straight arm side raises from almost bearable to unbearable. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Fridays are becoming my respite. No one’s particularly good at running up hills and flights of stairs, I’m not bad at it, comparatively, so I get house odds. Thank god for the small favours of previous workouts.

Burpie clarification: I don’t even know if I’m spelling it right, frankly it should be spelt s-u-c-k-s. (I know! I’m 9 years old!) What you basically do is lay your hands on the ground in front of your body, then spring back into a high plank position, feet slightly apart. Using your stomach muscles, you jump back to a crouched position, drawing your legs close to your arms, and spring up into a straightened position, optionally jumping with hands high in the air for extra marks. And repeat. Ad nausea. (Ha!) Speed is a big key in this particular exercise, as well as a non-slippery surface to ensure your feet don’t slide from beneath you in plank position. Then you end up in a belly flop, sans water. Not as refreshing.

Sorry about the lapse – I could say I was washed ashore on a deserted island for the weekend, without a computer handy after my plane mysteriously went down, but then I’d be plagiarizing. I was visiting with a friend for part of the weekend and bootcamp clearly wasn’t on my mind. Instead, we found a fierce apartment in Mission for the summer. Fierce! (Plagiarism – perhaps I like it more than I lead on.)

Speaking of other methods of copying, we have a run every morning in bootcamp for warmup. Unless I’m at the front of the group, and I’m never at the front of the group, I copy the pace of the person in front of me. I go the same speed as them, and keep at pretty much the same distance. I realize this course is only supposed to challenge ourselves, to champion against our inner lazy-pants. But in real life, that doesn’t happen. Competition makes it possible to run that little bit faster, to ignore your heart pounding up your throat, to swallow down the taste of blood and the raggedness of your breath; if only to beat the person in front of you.  

So what does it mean when I’m content to remain at the same pace as the person in front of me? Why I am only motivated when I’m first, when I can hear the person behind me wheezing and that spurs me on to put greater distances between us? Fear of failure? Let’s remember, this is only supposed to be a race between who we were, and who we want to be. I don’t fit into my competition model unless I’m the leader to begin with. Ah well, always the bridesmaid – never the bride.  Freud can analyze it later, I’m more for solid numbers and equations.

Thanks to the Children’s Shows of something something on the weekend – a wet weekend, to be sure, we had shelter for our exercises today. In the form of large, colourful tents. We still had to run in the rain. That never changes. It hurt to put my arms akimbo this morning, something was definitely stretched today.

Tomorrow – rain. 

It’s been two days of rainy conditions. I don’t think my shoes are ever going to fully recover from the repetitive dousings. Naomi was able to come this morning, and with an added bonus of a voice like Barry White that definitely perked up my morning run. And it didn’t rain nearly as hard today; only by the end was it starting to rain like it meant it. But still.

Yoga mats are like sponges. Don’t believe me? Try leaving yours out for an hour in scattered showers. Also, they are big draws for any worm seeking shelter from wet ground – and if the fear of falling onto worms doesn’t keep you in the plank position, I don’t know what will.

We kept to a children’s play area for the duration of our circuit training, with our mats set out and using some of the jungle gym equipment. It’s been a long time since I’ve used the parallel bars, and time has not been on my side. Also not on my side was weather, as cold bars aren’t fun bars, and moisture. Slippery bars aren’t…well, you get the picture. Also, the bars were pretty wide tubes, which I would think wouldn’t be very good for small hands trying to grasp them, as I couldn’t even get my hand all the way around it.  Not that I’m a park designer or anything.

And tomorrow is the dreaded stairs again. On the bright side, it’s only supposed to be partly cloudy. Pun totally intended.

Nothing I own is water proof. Not even my rain jacket – which one would assume, by the purpose of said article of clothing, it would be. But no.

I woke up this morning to the sound of a text message at 5 am, which I ignored for 15 minutes until my alarm went off. The text was from Naomi, saying she wouldn’t be coming to bootcamp this morning, so it’d be a solo event. And due to the wonderful weather – driving rain – she wasn’t the only person who didn’t show. The trainers had to make up a lot of the exercises on the fly, to ensure we stayed warm. This boiled down to a lot of running.  It didn’t even work that well – during sprints my legs didn’t seem to go much faster due to the cold and damp.

I could only think of how jealous I was of ship captains, with their yellow rain suits and souwesters that can clearly withstand a gale or two, and how much I wanted a huge mug of tea post workout.

We did our stretching inside the Eau Claire Market, which was nice because it was warm and dry. The downside was leaving Eau Claire, still in our sodden jackets, and haveing to march back over Prince’s Island Park and up the stairs to my oh-so-unconvieniently situated car.

Excuse the poor grammer. But I stole that off the survivor website, so whatcha gonna do? Fact is, there’s a long weekend and our trainers are taking it – so we are as well.

Good news: sleep. Sleep is awesome.

Bad news: Our regularily scheduled broadcast of fitness will be moved back by a quarter hour for the rest of the week, to make up for Monday’s lapse. 5:45 am, I’ll be seeing you way too soon.

It’s Saturday morning. Do you realize what time my body decided to wake up? My body is on crack. 5.30 am is not an acceptable sleeping in time. I’m definitely blaming this on bootcamp; It’s obviously a bad influence on my internal clock. I gave up trying to sleep in at 6 am. And sucks to be me since even the paper isn’t delivered that early on the weekend.

The view from the top of the stairs. What did I see? Spots. 

Yesterday we did stairs and hill climbs. It seems like every Friday will be that specific torture, which isn’t actually that bad since I was running those stairs before bootcamp. I was really proud of Naomi for finishing yesterday’s class, because she too used to run the stairs with me in the winter, but was never motivated to put herself through the torture of running all the flights. So, great job! And I think this was one of the first days we weren’t breaking the no complaining rule so much. Probably because I didn’t have that much breath left over for speaking. Stairs will do that to a girl. 

Fact: I love to arrive early to events and engagements. It’s a compulsive thing, and also has to do with the clock in my car being 7 – 10 minutes fast.  So I arrive at bootcamp early, and have been running in to our trainer at the top of the stairs, and chatting her up. I know I could use this to my advantage – but how?

Easier workouts? I’m debating this. First, if I complain to much she’ll see through my scam. Secondly, aren’t I here to have someone kick my ass? Wasn’t that the whole point? Would I want to rob myself of that? (Sometimes, yes. Hells yeah.)

And that’s about as far as I’ve gone. Apart from asking her to concentrate on a certain part of the body during the workout (“My calves weren’t shooting sharp pains up my legs yesterday, after practice. Would it be possible to manipulate them more today, so I hobble around all weekend?”) I guess I’m just not seeing any other angles.  It’s a flat plain of non-usefulness.