Back to Bootcamp Fall 2013

Otherwise known as... Raw, but Resilient...

This is Homecoming Week at My Small Town High School.  Yesterday we dressed as Super Heroes/Super Villains.  I wore my Evil Queen t-shirt.  An homage to Snow White's stepmother, the form-fitting black shirt bears an bright red apple. 

Yesterday afternoon, as I was getting dressed for My Ever Growing School District's Fall Bootcamp, which started last week, I realized I didn't need to change my shirt.  The Evil Queen is made of bamboo, and is in my rotation of running shirts.  So I kept my other shirt clean and comfy in the gym bag.... and drove to camp, making it just... on... time.

I didn't know it, but my favorite workout was on tap for the day.  It's a day when Chad, our fearless instructor, has us compete against ourselves, with sets of ten, adding up to 100, of the following exercises:

• Jumping jacks.
• Bicep curls.
• Bent over rows.
• Push ups.  
• Sit ups.
• Hip raises.
•  Lunges.
• Squats.
• Tricep dips.
• Shoulder presses.
• Leg lifts,
• Toe Touches.
• 10 Laps.

I did it all, 100 of everything, with the exception of the toe touches (too easy), and I only managed 50 leg lefts, and completed 5 of the 10 laps fairly early on.  I ran out of time.  We had forty minutes to work it.

I may have left off one or two other exercises, but I think I've got it all down.  

Have I told you this is my favorite workout? 

I must be sick.

Chad came by about three-quarters of the way into the workout.  He examined my sheet.  Jen, do you think you're in the best shape of your life?

No.  I was in the best shape two years ago, when I was boot camping, and running, and salsa dancing.

The other piece of this exchange is that I weighed about six pounds lighter.  Just six pounds.  In terms of fitness, I think I probably am in the best shape ever.  I certainly never started boot camp very nearly completing the entire sheet! (But the six pounds less would sure be nice!)

There is one negative, though, to completing the sheet:  100 sit ups.  I did them, in two sets of thirty and two sets of twenty, and now I am suffering the consequences.  The skin directly covering the area where my spine meets the tail bone... has been rubbed raw.  I literally have a pain in the rear. 

I wish I could say this was the first time.

I am almost used to it.

By tomorrow, the rawness will scab over, then the sore will heal, and I'll be good until the next time I have to do one hundred sit ups, and hopefully I'll bring more padding next time.  (Although my workout mat is pretty cushiony-- but clearly not... cushiony... enough!)

My little sit ups/skin rubbed raw issue is a good analogy for new relationships.  You expose yourself.  Sometimes you get hurt.... but you heal, and start over, and you know, you go back for another round, perhaps a little bit more protected than before.  And hopefully, the next time, you won't get hurt, or at least, not as much.  But you've got to try.

***

Besides the 100 sit up/sensitive skin pain, did you catch that I did 100 push ups yesterday?  If I can do that, I can do anything.