As with any one-income family that lives on a budget, financing such a program can be problematic. Even if I cancelled our gym membership to the Y, we could not afford such a luxury. I was all set to give up, but God had my back.
"I remembered meeting a friend of a friend about four months ago - let's call her Angel because that what she was to me - who invited me to join an informal boot camp."
I met Angel through a play date at the park during the school's winter break. She heard me talk about being bored with my same old running regime and invited me to try it out. The group met three times a week at various parks in my neighborhood. The best part was that it was free.
Oh yeah! You heard me. I said, "FREE!" Anyone who knows me, know that my favorite words are "free," and "I have a coupon for that ..."
But after several scheduling conflicts with the kids' activities, I flaked on her and never made it. She told me I could come out whenever I was ready. Didn't I tell you God had my back?
As faith would have it, she meant what she said. Hubby and I arrived for our first session ready to burn some calories, but my enthusiasm sank with each step that I took towards the bootcampers. As we surveyed our teammates silently, I knew he was thinking what I was thinking. There was not a chunky person in the group. They were all thin and looked quite fit. But I guess that was to be expected if they were on-going boot campers. I'm not really sure what I expected.
Aside from the group leader, no one had bulging muscles or anything, but they looked confident in what they were about to do. What's worse is they were welcoming and supportive.
Angel was as nice as can be and so were her teammates. They all introduced themselves and kept reiterating to "go at my own pace or stop if I need to." I couldn't even use the excuse that they were a bunch of "skinny snobs" as a reason for not coming back after we embarrassed ourselves.
Nope, I just had to keep silently reciting my mantra "40 and fat, err, I mean, 40 and fabulous." We started with a quick warm-up lap around the track. Now you're talking, I thought. Easy breezy. This is my weapon of choice and I am the BOMB!!!!!
It's funny how we can be humbled when we start to get cocky. The run quickly turned into one of my least favorite exercises, "suicides."
Suicides requires a lot of running, except you pinpoint a specific number of spots on the floor, say point A to point B and so on. You run from point A to point B, then back to A.
Then you run from point A to point C, then back to A - that is one full set. You do however many sets the person in charge requires of you or until you pass out (JK).
Our instructor, who was as calm as they come, but yet, motivating, kept telling us, “stop if you need to or lose your breath.” All I could think is “does the same go for if we lose our lunch.”
I can see where this little ditty got its name. You'd have to be on the verge committing such an act if you are trying this out just for kicks.
Just hearing the name of the exercise brought me back to my freshman year of high school when I attempted to try out for girls basketball. I was a bit of a Tomboy and played every sport that you could think of with the neighborhood boys.
Not only did I play kickball, baseball and basketball, I even played many rounds of kick butt basketball, which was sort of like playing horse except the loser got kicked in the butt by all of the players, as many times as there were letters in the word kick butt.
"I can recall my neighbor Charlie drawing his leg back all the way back to what seemed like downtown to kick me."
Stubborn and stupid, I'd show up everyday to my neighbor’s backyard determined to win and show the village idiots that girls can do anything boys can do. I never got to ask the question “whose the idiot now?” But I certainly earned the respect of the boys in the neighborhood.
Needless to say, I became very good at basketball and making the team would have been a no brainer for me had they not required us to do suicides. I quit after the first day and never looked back.
Imagine my reaction when I heard the boot camp instructor say we were going to start off with suicides. "Surely God was trying to tell me something - or maybe he just has a great sense of humor."
Here was my chance walk the talk on my journey to 40 and Fabulous -- and redeem my quitting self from years past.
Did I mention that my aunt was the basketball coach? If only she could see me now. I made it through three sets of suicides before jumping into a whole host of other “just-kill-me now” calisthenics.
It was what I like to call sweet and sour. It was sweet to know that I was well on my way to being 40 and Fab because I was challenging myself to do something I never thought I could do. As for the sour - it needs no explanation.
You will be happy to know that I survived my first boot camp workout. I only had to stop once or twice to catch my breath. I didn’t even embarrass my 9-year-old son anytime I finished last in an exercise.
You go girl!!!!
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