Prison Break

On Monday I went to the evening boot camp, since I was more awake (thank you sugar free Red Bull, my hero) and also since it wasn't as cold. Also I had accustomed myself to sleeping until 11:30 AM every day over the Thanksgiving holiday.

We started with a challenging post-Thanksgiving push up/plank/squat thrust/mountain climbers circuit (made even more difficult with half a pumpkin pie in your stomach) and then had "interval" runs in between. I was just glad we weren't doing the Ring of Fire again because I still maintain it gave me a cold last time.
For our second interval run, McD announced we were going to be doing a prison run which is one of the few boot camp exercises that actually sounds as difficult as it is. Which is testament to how tough it is.

A prison run is basically where you put your hands behind your head and then you take off running as if you just busted out of Pelican Bay Maximum Security Prison. Which may not sound hard, but running without your arms is kind of like swimming without your legs or playing the piano without your hands. Rather difficult and, in this case, aerobically challenging. From now on I am going to refer to the Indian Run as the Chain Gang Run, in an effort to create more truth in advertising.

When we got done with the run, we started up some more circuits, most of which I've quickly forgotten in a sort of Stockholm-syndrome cycle that I go through post-workout. I do remember McD saying "You guys were all so talkative before the prison run!" No one responded, just various gasps and Hail Marys from the crowd. "What happened?" McD continued. "What happened to chatty?"

Had I not been utilizing every ventricle of my heart to pump blood to my shoulders at that moment in time, I would have responded "I think Chatty got shot escaping from prison."

How To Kill a Camper in 100 Reps or Less

I woke up the Monday morning after the Race for the Cure feeling like someone had punched me in both eyes. I think this was mainly allergies, but allergies were definitely not to blame for my hamstrings feeling like they had reduced in length by half. So I decided that I was going to sleep in the extra heavenly two hours and try to make the evening boot camp class instead.

Last night we did an Indian run, which is when everyone runs in a single-file line. The person at the front carries a baton and the last person in line attempts to sprint/crawl their way to the front and take the baton. This process repeats for the duration of a mile, or until the group falls apart and everyone just shuffles along in a mass of bodies.

After the Indian run, we started doing what Stephanie calls "The 100's," which I think stands for how many sets of each upper-body exercise you do, but also represents the number of times I wanted to throw up during the work out. It's kind of humorous that anyone would look at me with the expectation that I could do 100 push ups and then assume I would ever be able to move again, let alone work out.

The ten sets of ten push ups were definitely the most miserable part, where you would squeeze out about six and then the last four would simply be an out of body experience. In between each set, I curled up into a ball and pretended I was on a reality show where I would win a million dollars after all this. But the truth of the matter was that I was really just not going to be able to wash my hair that night or lift a beer up to my mouth since my arms ceased to function somewhere between the 17th and 20th push up I did.

I suggested we take our exercise down a notch, maybe the "I love the 90's" or the "Roaring 20s" work out but Stephanie didn't seem to think that was such a good idea. Instead we continued on with 100s. At one point, she asked us all how we were feeling but no one managed to say anything. I personally think that was because of one of two reasons: 1) We were all too busy counting, hoping we were almost to 100 or 2) We couldn't come up with any words that wouldn't break the "no four letter words" class rule.