I decided a boot-blog might be interesting to go back and read at the end of this. I can’t promise that I will always be particularly loquacious – but here it goes…
I did not want to get out of bed today… no thoughts of skipping the session or anything, but just was very sleepy. Hopefully a good night’s sleep will come easier tonight. Last night I forced myself to sleep at 10 – giving me a solid 7 hours. 8 would be better.
Our group is pretty small, and over half of the attendees are instructors or have been instructors in the past. Charles, myself, and one other were the only campers that are 1st timers. There were several repeat attendees – veterans, if you will.
They started us out with a warm up… stretching, running up and down hills and steps, high knees, toy soldiers, mission imp, etc. From there, all the new campers were taken to do a PT test. I have not done one of these since middle school. My high school gym teachers were afraid to take responsibility for my asthma, so I sat out all 4 years of PT tests….. That’s a whole different blog/conversation.
The PT test consisted of running a mile, sit-up’s, push up’s, & triceps dips.
1 – Running a mile after the warm up, and running to the track was a bit intimidating. I can run a mile +, but normally I have not done anything beforehand. It was a challenging mile, but I finished without stopping in 9:56. Not the best mile I have ever run, but I will take it. Here, I “ran into” goal number one: shave down that mile time. 8:30 perhaps?
2 – As many push-ups as you can in one minute. Sheesh, if you have ever seen my Tyrannosaurus arms, you would guess this is not going to be my strong suit, and you would be right. When observing the proper form, I can do 19 pushups in 60 seconds. 20 would sound better, but trust me busting out one more was NOT HAPPENING. Will be interested to see how this changes in 30 days.
3 – As many Sit Up’s as you can do in one minute. Remember when they let some-one hold your feet down and gave you a mat to lay on so you didn’t hurt yourself? That’s not the boot camp way! On the concrete, while planting feet and going for it. 22 sit-up’s in 60 seconds – that was shocking to me. I definitely thought I would be able to do more. Goal: 45 (ambitious, but motivating)
4 – As many Tricep-dips as you can in one minute. These were new to me. I had never done one before, but didn’t mind them much. I did 30 in one minute, and will just see how bad those rarely used muscles are going to feel in the morning! No goal here – but will be grateful for any improvement.
After the PT, we ran back to the remainder of the group, stretched and wrapped up. They warned us that feeling a bit ill at the end of the first day was perfectly normal. Both Charles and I were very nauseous – but a quick shower and a bite to eat really turned that around. Our homework is to eat right and come up with one large goal for the 30 day experience. That’s something to think on: but I believe perfect attendance sounds like a pretty good one J