Bootcamp: 10, 11, & 12

I fell off the bootcamp blogging bandwagon. I made it to 10 out of 12 classes, lost 10 lbs, and rediscovered some new curves. I looked forward to jumping on the scale to see the number drop rather than wince at the digits staring back at me. Coincidentally, I also got naked in front of a hot guy with muscles and tattoos right about the end of bootcamp. We'll just leave that story alone for now.

Day 10, it started to rain and before I even saw the rain, I felt it in my joints. I didn't go. End of story. I beat myself up over it a little, but then I fell asleep on the couch.

Day 11, Wednesday, Hump Day, the rain was still coming down so we had to go inside to the indoor soccer field. I used to play soccer there once upon a time. It was musty that morning, smelled like a sweat sock or a boy's room or a gym locker, or all of those combined. Yes, lovely. It was humid, like an armpit. Yes, lovely. We ran a lot and I sweat. A lot. I think if there was an award for who gets to sweat the most, I would win it. My glands are in it to win it. I remember feeling tired, but stronger than usual. I was wearing my "feel your boobies" tshirt. It was jiggling. Gotta get me a new sports bra, note to self.

Day 12, Friday, the last day that I had on the books, and I was a little bit sad. Sadness, aside, my body said NOOOOO! but my mind said GOOOOO!!! and so I went. Back to the sweaty, stinky, musty indoor soccer field. The routine for the last day was this: SPRINT(!!) to the middle of the line on the field, do 10 walking lunches, 10 some kind of football strength training exercise jumping in and out of a ladder thing, run around a cone, pick up another cone, read the exercise, and do 20 of those...finished? Ok, go do it again! This went on for an hour and sprint my chubby butt I did. I was having flashbacks of playing on an adult co-ed indoor soccer team a few years back. My first indoor soccer game, I got in the penalty box within 5 minutes. I was blue carded. Soccer is not my forte apparently.

I ran fast, long, and lean and made every step count. I really pushed myself to the limits. I was proud of myself, pretended like I was racing an imaginary someone and before an hour had passed by and I beat down another early morning AM workout.

I lost 10 lbs. 10 lbs in 4 weeks! My body still has a good metabolism and it takes well to the right kinds of exercise. I may have given up on my body temporarily, but it hasn't given up on me. I gained something too. A new found appreciation and desire to be fit, to move my body, to feel confident, to eat right, to walk the dog more often, to put myself first, to be unapologetically obsessed with being the best version of me that I can be, to accomplish #9 and fucking flaunt it, to be the center of attention and like it, to look like I feel, to be happy inside and out. I gained so much more than I lost really. Well, I gained and I lost at the exact same time and one was because of the other.

***Post bootcamp, 2 days after my last bootcamp, the usual soreness was lingering a little too long in my right knee. Come Monday afternoon, it was hot to the touch, Tuesday and some icing later, it was better when the Doc took a look at it, Wednesday, it started to make noise. Now today, more than 2 weeks after my last bootcamp, it sounds like a bowl of rice crispies, I feel a little old and a little broken. I didn't join up for the bootcamp that's in session now because I have been temporarily banned from a) running b) squatting and c) lunging = the bootcamp trifecta. I shed a small tear, I made a small sad face, but I'm just a little bent, my knee cartilage is a little bruised, but my fitness spirit is not broken. Not one bit. All this limping around is making me want to get out and move!!

I'm really glad my innervoice took over in the midst of an internal pity party and forced me to buy that bootcamp package. It was one of the best things I've done for me in a long, long time. Cheers to bootcamp. I'll be back!

Bootcamp: day 9

It was cool and dark and everything in my was saying, "turn around and get in bed!", but then some damn internal Scarlett O'Hara took over and drove me to the park at o'dark terrible for day 9 of bootcamp.

It was the same old early morning torture, BUT, alas, you see something has begun to work. My first lap around the park began as always, dragging my feet and groaning on the inside. I hate running, but I started, I picked up my feet, I remembered to try to control my breathing, make my strides count, and consciously watch my feet go one in front of the other. I rounded the first bend and saw the street light where I usually stop and start to walk, but it was coming up faster than usual. I got there and I kept going. "Don't stop, you can do it, just keep going, you're almost there." I repeated that over and over while listening to the footsteps keeping pace behind me and the ones that were just up in front of me in the distance. I was in the middle of the pack, not back in second to last like usual. The girls in front, the weekend half-marathoners, the "runners", were just ahead of me.

My aversion to running is ever so sligtly lessened by my ability to persevere through the endless repetitions of squats, flys, dead lifts, bicep curls, crunches, and the like. I can really knock those out. I figure the faster I get them done, the faster I can go to bed. Not so. The faster I got them done, the faster I was sent out to run the loop, and at this time, I was in the lead. Well until the near end, and then one of the runners caught up with me. But still, there for a few minutes of solitary hoofing it, I was the head of the pack, the grand poo bah, the and it felt gooood. As God is my witness, I shall never be at the back of the pack again!!!

Bootcamp: day 8

I didn't go. Yeah. Fuck!!! I missed one!!! I didn't even get to make up for it during the afternoon. But...I did make a reintroduction to yoga and despite the mid 90's temperature outside, I was stronger and had more endurance for the sweatfest that I became my last night. Even the instructor had to open the studio doors and turn on the fan...it was stupid hot. I persevered & I survived. I always get easily forgotten reminders and little nuggets of wisdom from yoga class:

*Search your heart and devote this time to something, to someone, give it meaning and purpose. (Imagine if we each did that everyday in some capacity. What kind of change we could collectively make in this world.)
*Where you are is right where you're supposed to be.
*Let go all all the things you're holding on to that are not serving you.
*Listen to your body, don't ignore what it's telling you.
*Don't forget to breath.

Yoga is just as mental and spiritual as it is physical. I really, truly have come to appreciate it and all that it forces me to be for 90 minutes at a time. The yoga studio has become a refuge for me.

Refuge and place of peace, aside, I cannot NOT share this though. It is brilliant and made me laugh until I cried. Please, if you ever do just one thing at my advice, read this!!!

Yoga mat for sale used 1 time.

Namaste, my friends.

Bootcamp: day 7

Before there was "blogging", there was this. You see, just writing.  Pen & paper.  I am still computer-less & so over it!!!  I need my laptop to be healed!  

Here I was standing at my kitchen counter, legs shaking, still sweating even though it was only 78* in the house, the gallon of milk might have been a bag of cement.  

Bootcamp, week 3.  What?!  I got through 2 weeks already?! AWOL this morning, the instuctor sent me a text to get to the afternoon class.  Yes ma'am!

I made the warm up loop at a fast jog without quitting.  That's a big deal for me, ya know?!  My weekend wedding in heels killed my baby toes but even those little guys tougher out the hour in booty camp today.  "oh my baby toe!!"

An easier warm up run was just that.  The next 50 minutes of 20 seconds of reps at a time was an ass kicker.  We did suicides, nuff said.  The great thing about this sweet torture is that I can't pull my mind away from it long enough to get fixated on the other things bringing me down this week.  It's a tourturous break, 30 seconds at a time. 

I'm still huffing & puffing & trying not to go down, but I am getting stronger & I am seeing little changes.  Mentally, I'm more in this game than I have been in a long, long time.  That counts for so much.  

The quote at the end of the hour did me in: "I am strong and know no limits. I can defy gravity and shatter stereotypes.  My curves are earned as my weakness is shed.  I trade soft for firm and tears for sweat.  I turn guilt into satisfaction and tomorrow's chore into today's opportunity. I am confident and I inspire to be great!" ~ author unknown 

Bootcamp: day 6

Friday morning bootcamp. Ugh. I really don't like you at all. I just wanna go to sleeeepp!! I had added incentive. I had a guest come with me for the morning...a co-worker. I told her to be prepared. Cheap words compared to the torture that laid ahead. If I hadn't have shown up, she would have been on my front porch, banging on the door.

Morning bootcamp means lots of running. Lots and lots of damned running, and lots and lots of repetitions. So many of both, that I couldn't see where I was running through my eyelash sweat. As I stood, legs shaking, in the dim moonlight of the tennis court, and listened to Adam Lambert, I wanted to scream right along with him "what do you want from me!?!"

I was sweating like I was standing in the shower. But I wasn't. I was outside under the stars and my sports bra was forming a small puddle. There's not much more to report about the remainder of the repetitive torture. I'm down 6 lbs. Yeah, just 6, but that's 6 down...and they're down slowly but surely, which means they should stay down. I'm halfway done. What an accomplishment!

Bootcamp: day 5, I'm still alive

Wednesday morning 3am, still up from the night before, legs heavy from an hour of midnight racquetball, I just couldn't face the 4:45am day. I couldn't do it. Afternoon class was my fall back, even with the 100* weather prediction.

I weighed in today. I'm down 4 lbs. Slowly, but surely, something is working. It's not all curses, sweaty sports bras, and side cramps.

Wykoff Wednesday. Just when I thought we would remain on the grass in the shade doing plank push ups and tabletop crunches, she said "put your water in my backpack, we're running up Wykoff". I don't like Wykoff and it doesn't like me. "I don't wanna!!!" I wanted to yell, but I didn't. I just put my head down and looked at the ground and my feet. We had 10 minutes to get halfway up the hill all together before we would be disqualified and have to do it again.

Despite the sore muscles and the heaving in my chest, I made it up. Almost the last one, I found another asthma victim covered in tattoos crawling at a snail's pace. It's good not to be the most pathetic. Maybe it's the ink? It's like kryptonite for my stamina? Huh? Yeah? Good theory? No. Well, I tried.

Today just hurts and I just wanna cry. I wanna cry because it just shouldn't be this damn hard for me. Not at this age. I could cry, it would never show through the sunglasses. It would just look like more sweat pouring down my face.

But I'm almost halway through this month of bootcamp and I just won't give up. I won't. I can't. Five down, seven to go.

And PS, audience of the park today, I'm sorry about the large rip in the inner thigh of my stretchy pants.  In the words of Nacho Libre: "Sometimes...we wear stretchy pants."

Bootcamp: Four!!!

Bootcamp. It has not gone away, but my daily report has been halted by lack of: Internet and then by lack of laptop. The screen just plain burned out. My body feels like the screen, burned out.

Monday early AM, I was comfortably in my usual chair at work putting in some overtime, I did not join my regular group of ladies in the park after dark. A day off? Noooo, how silly of you to even think that! Afternoon bootcamp...yes, the non-early risers. Not until 5am did I realize that the afternoon temperature on this fine September day was going to be 96*. Oh morning coolness, how bittersweet you are.

An hour of torture is much different at 5:30pm than it is at 4:45am. There is light, there is heat, there is an audience. My ever present photographer's eye caught the light in the park, through the trees, the leaves, how it made the grass glow, and all the sweaty skin tones look amazing. It was that magical hour before sunset when everyone should have their picture taken. Sunshine that just makes everything more beautiful.

Now don't get me wrong. Sunshine or not, the torture continued. The usual squats and lunges, the flys and the bicep curls, the duck walks and the bear crawls. WTF? Yeah, they looked and felt just a ridiculous as they sound. It was a beautiful, sweaty mess, BUT, there was FAR less running. Much, much less running. As the instruction said "I just can't make you run in this heat." Oh afternoon heat, you are so good, so good.

My new exercise routine is not just limited to para-military torture. It's been peppered with dog walking and racket ball playing at the "new" gym. I've turned into one of those women who spends at least 8 hours a day in a sports bra.

Tuesday's shorts were appropriate for the beginning of the day when the 97* was in full effect as I walked the dog and the Uncle around the park loop twice, but by the time the midnight racquetball invitation rolled around, after sweating through bootcamp and cleaning house in this Indian Summer, my shorts and my hair were not at the peak of the day. It was then that I came to my darkest realization as of recent: I was channeling my inner Richard Simmons.

The sports bra. The shorts. The sweaty, frizzy hair.

It's all downhilll from here.

Bootcamp: Day Threeeeeeeee

Day 3.

I almost have nothing left to give to you.

Post 12 hours of swing shift, pre one hour outdoor sweat fest, bootcamp, I wanna find yo mama and slap her for giving birth to you!!!

I was the first one there, only on account of just getting off work at 4 am and knowing that if I stayed in my kitchen killing any more time, I would either 1) fall asleep standing at the counter or b) fall asleep while eating oatmeal and choke to death.

As usual, the first order of the day to get that old ticker ticking which means, RUN, RUN like the wind ladies!!! (or fast walk she said), but I ran, (fast jogged maybe) nawwww....in my book, we call it running. I even managed to make it around the whole circle without feeling like the 4th of July was exploding out of my chest.
and then we got to it:
squat, lunge, reach for the sky, up, down, down to the ground, sideways, on your back, on your belly, stick that butt out like you're looking for a chair...we skied, we jumped rope, did some military thing...and then we did it again.

The sky was clear this morning and the moon was bright. Bright enough that I actually found myself squinting as I stared up at it, holding my hands behind my head and counting down crunches.

twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are
up above the world so high
like a diamond in the sky
twinkle, twinkle little star
how I wonder what you are...
I wish I may, I wish I might..

I wished on a star tonight.

I did, I made wishes. I made wishes that I can't tell you about. They say they wont come true if you say them out loud.

An hour seemed like eternity today, but there was determination in the air. One entire week. I made it...Monday, check, Wednesday, check, Friday, check. I'm 25% done and already a little better.

I made it home, dry, tired eyes pulled into the driveway and I closed them for a second while waiting for the garage door to open, and just like that, I think I fell asleep in that tiny pause.

It was work to reach and lift to get the blender, to open the protein powder, reach for the glass, but it had to be done.

I have a sweet, sexy love for all things coconut...say what?! Put the coconut oil in everything?! What is this glorious news? It's a good fat, that one that your heart needs, it burns faster and keeps your metabolism high. So you're telling me that it's an oil...that burns fat? You sexy coconutty thing, where have you been all my life?
Me, the coconut oil, my high protein dutch chocolate protein powder, it all went down the hatch with a couple of salmon oil pills for the inflammation creeping into my joints. I may qualify for a trip to Jiffy Lube after this, but not before I drag my sweaty carcass into a nice hot shower and limp my sore behind into bed to sleep and recover from this week.

I made it through week one. I wanted to give up, literally throw in the dirty, sweaty towel, but I stuck it out. Not just in bootcamp, but in everything this week.
I'm here and I survived... and I'm not as sore and beat up as I was. I'm maybe even a little bit stronger and I have a little more faith in myself(again)...my heart's beating and I'm still breathing.

Tomorrow is a new day and next week is a new week.

Bootcamp: Numero Dos

Day 2:

8:40 pm the night before, listening to Party Rock! live and watching LMFAO in person, I got this text:
"Wycoff tomrw. Meet at street corner. Need mats only after we return from the walk run."
Wycoff? Why? Why? Whycoff!?
Wycoff is a hill, a paved street, that goes straight UP. The nice houses are on the hill with platforms that lead down to the houses that are perched on the side of the slope that we were going to conquer at 4....45....in the AM.

I got the text of when/where while in the belly of the beast, sweaty, spatially unaware teens with odor problems, leaking glitter and hormones. I couldn't wait for bootcamp after that!!!

4:45 came, and so did the listening to my lungs weep and wheeze out all the pathetic days of sitting on the couch and hitting the snooze button.
I didn't want to get out of bed this morning, I even tell you what compelled me to pull up my heavy legs again and lace up my shoes again.
Some small voice inside my head was louder than the moans and groans of my muscles, my core, and my left shoulder.

First one at the park in the dark, I waited in my car until more lined up behind me, and...then, no one got out, until the first person caved to the hour. I wont lie. It was me. I just wanted to start it so it could end.

Gathering on the corner, yawing and comparing uphill horror stories, the instructor asked where her runners were. Runners? Pssshawww! Uh huh. You crazy. I know this hill, we go way back, and we are not friends.

We started going up... and then came the breathing and the chanting and the self-talk..."its not asthma, its not asthma, its not asthma."
It got steeper, "imagine you're a mountain goat, Lauren, hoof it!"
"wait, what was that noise? Something is making noise in the grass! Keep going, just don't look."
"If Freddy was chasing me right now, I'd be dead...I literally could not run for my life. I could get slashed to death right here on this hill."

Watching ladies backsides as they huffed and puffed up the hill ahead of me, I started to run through the prearrival instructions from my emergency medical dispatch training:
Tightness in my chest, shortness of breath, the feeling that someone is snapping a rubber band on your sternum over and over again...heart attack? Could be, I've already ruled out he asthma.
Pathetic.
Then I started to count steps, and imagine next summer and bikinis, this winter and leggings and hot boots, and yes, just wearing nothing at all and liking what stares back at me in the mirror when I get out of the shower.

On the downhill slope, I saw those familiar lights on the hills out in the distance. They looked like lighters in a crowd at a concert. Some of them were flickering, dotted across the hills that make this little valley I call home.
I've been up this hill a lot of times at night to clear my head...even with it being much easier behind the steering wheel, I could appreciate that I was able to linger a little longer and enjoy the view as I wandered back down.

Back in the tennis courts, minus the hand weights, I wondered what the duty belt looking thing was that was just laid at the end of my mat. Just bigger than a steering wheel with two padded grips it was called, wait for it, wait for it...the "magic circle"
You know what would really be magic? If I gave it a hard squeeze with these powerful inner thighs and it sent me back to my bed like I was being beamed up in an episode of star trek.

We did a lot of "magic" for the next 25 minutes
Squeezing it with our ankles while fake steering with my legs. The instruction in her sweet voice saying "its like a lazy Sunday, driving miss daisy."
Shit, I'd call shotgun if i was in that movie.
When we did the hip thing and all I thought of was that it's on my bucket list to look like Shakira. She's hot.
Sweating, cursing again at that streetlight from day one, I wondered if there was a possibility of getting moonburn?
arms. squats. pushups. half windmilll...

I'm not gonna lie...i can think of much better ways to work the inner thighs and it doesn't involve 14 other women and a tennis court. Ya picking up what I'm putting down? uuuhh hhhuuhh...

And then... it was over and I did it, once again. One more down, 10 more to go...

Bootcamp: D-day

What was I thinking?

4am is meant for a lot of things: staying up, just getting in bed, activities that involve either pajamas or no clothes at all.

4am is not meant for other things: waking up, heating up oatmeal, finding your yoga pants in the garage laundry basket, letting the dog out cause she has diarrhea for the 5th time in 3 hours.

445am is meant for even less. Running around in the dark in a park you used to play in as a child with a group full of women you've never met and deer you hope wont spring its little Bambi self into you is not at the top of the 445 list.

445, we have been betrayed. This park and I are no strangers to exercise and fitness. High school tennis in the very court I was sitting in this morning. Round and round and round the jogging trail, year after year before I could even drink. The hopes and dreams we used to lay out on that track 10+ years ago. Oh, how things have changed.

I remember the old play structure that used to be there. I remember the rough beams that gave you splinters, the tire swing that swung a little to hard, and metal slide. The metal slide in the sun. That was before the ergonomic, fire retardant bark for little knees and the recycled plastic bottle slides that don't absorb heat.Metal slides. What genius thought that was an OK idea? What didn't sizzle got stuck on the hot metal and squeaked all.the.way.down...eek, eek, eek.

But back to the park this morning at 445. Why?

Bootcamp.

I signed up for an all ladies, out door, "adventure" bootcamp. 12 sessions. 4 weeks. "It's an adventure" says the website and it went like this:
run.
squat.
RUN.
crunch.
RUN.
curl.
run. run. run.

"OK, now run to the corner ladies!" peppy...how peppy it sounded echoing in that dark park this morning.
In the dim light of the early morning, I found a streetlight to focus on to dull the pain. I cursed it 487 times this morning. "Fuck you street light, I don't want to squat anymore!"
Working on my abs, I found shapes in the clouds in the moonlight to distract from the shaking muscles. Yes, the moon. It was full and it was bright and should have been shining on my roof while I laid in bed snoring. It smiled at me like it had been waiting up to laugh at me all night!!"Its a bunny. It's an apple. That one looks like a big boob." I'm not making it up, there were boobs in the clouds at 510am.

I ran again, then I jogged, I finally gasped for air. I walked. I jogged some more. Then I saw the grass. I wanted to lay in it. Face first. I didn't even care that the sprinklers were on.

"Way to go Lauren! I won't kill you on the first day, I promise!" said the instructor"Hit me in the back of the neck with a shovel and just put me out," I wanted to say back at her, but the words got stuck in what may be early on set congestive heart failure. Or asthma. I really think it could be asthma.

Covered in gravel pathway dust and sweat, squatting, I wished to be in hot yoga class sweating like a cold glass on a hot day. At least there, when the heat gets too much to bear, you can sit in child's pose with your face in your sweaty mat and your ass up in the air and no one thinks less of you.

My knees are going to hate me. My quads already do.

But...and there is a butt. As I prayed and wished and willed my heavy lunged, squatted, and curled legs to keep the pace up, and keep going one over the other, I thought about my booty and how good its gonna look in 4 weeks. Yeeaaah, buddy!
I thought about that new dress I got last week and those hot boots that go with it.
I thought about Vegas and the tiny hemlines and the tall platforms.
I thought about wearing nothing at all.
I thought about bathing suits. I thought about the annual lake day.
I thought about 5K's, marathons, warrior dash, and tough mudder.
I thought about the fact that my brother got up every.single.day for almost 5 months and put on his shoes and ran across this entire country. The entire country. On foot.
I thought about Catie whose body wont let her get up and Annie who might be able to run if she could see what was in front of her.
I thought about me and all the times I've just threw in the towel and went to bed.
Finally, I thought I can do this again.

And then...it was over.1 session down. 11 to go.

And...guess what? I can breath again. It's not asthma.