The Boot Camp Diaries, Day 9 (aka Hitting Boot Camp Before Hitting the Beach)

Today I leave on my beach vacation with three good friends. Most normal people would be sleeping in a bit and finishing up some last-minute packing. You've probably figured out by now that I'm not so normal, as evidenced by my decision to go to boot camp before hitting the road.

Once again we had Heather as our instructor instead of Margaret. She started by placing orange cones in a wide semi-circle around a field at the park. We were instructed to run to each cone, pick up the cone and read the exercise on the bottom of it, and then run back to our mats and perform the exercise before running to the next cone, and so on. We could start at any cone we wanted and go in any order we wanted. Perhaps unwisely, I began with the cone nearest me; maybe I would have been better off tackling the cones that were farthest away first while I still had fresh legs and lungs, but I was afraid that if I didn't go in order I'd quickly lose track of which cone I was supposed to run to next.

The exercises were mostly strength exercises such as lunges, crunches, burpees, etc. I liked having the strength exercises mixed in with cardio; it seems to be a bit more palatable than running for a long time in one stretch.

For the last half of class we did a combination of yoga and pilates. I've always been pretty flexible, but I'm finding that I'm even more limber thanks to the yoga we've been doing in boot camp.

I'm glad that I did get up and go to boot camp right before leaving on my trip. It probably doesn't hurt to get some last-minute toning in before putting on a swimsuit.