The Boot Camp Diaries, Day Seven (aka Keep On Keeping On)

I'm not sure if it was the fact that it was Monday, or if boot camp sessions are in fact more challenging, but today's session was one of the toughest yet for me. After our usual few minutes of warm-up, we ran/walked a mile around the park. That part wasn't so bad. Little did I know what our instructor had in store for us next...

We were told to each pick up two bowls and put 20 poker chips into one of the bowls. Margaret had lined up two sets of cones, about 40 yards apart from each other, and we placed our poker chip-filled bowls at the far set of cones. We had to run from the starting set of cones to our bowl, pick up one poker chip at a time, and run back to deposit the chip in the empty bowl. We ran five laps at a time, and after each set of five, we'd do a quick set of various exercises with weights before returning to running another set of five laps.

I am by no means a runner, and it didn't take long before I was at the back of the pack. Some campers (who are obviously in far superior running shape compared to me) were on their final set of laps while I was still on my third. Still, I tried to not focus on comparing my performance to theirs (a surefire way to disappointment in a hurry) and instead just concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other. We ran a total of 20 laps, and amazingly I was still upright at the end of them!

After all that running, weight training seemed somewhat easier. We did quite a few abdominal crunches and some plank exercises, so I'm anticipating really feeling it in my abs tomorrow.