Bootcamp Week 3: Halfway to the finish line

Yay! We are officially half way through with the bootcamp experience! I can't believe we've made it this far without croaking in a squirrel-infested bush in Golden Gate park. I don't feel like such a lazy, unmotivated donut-sucking wino no more. I mean, my body is still flabbin' in the wind, but mentally I am feeling accomplished.

The week started with my most excellent performance yet~~~a 23-muthafuckin-minute run on Monday. Call Ripley's...or the Enquirer! I figure we ran a good 2+ miles that day. Aside from the exhaustion, there were many moments of nature-love during the treacherous run and throughout the workout: a few puffs of strong-smelling sage bushes, the rhythmic pulsing of the sprinklers over the gorgeous, bright yellow, full bloom flower garden, and the mesmerizing fog spit that cooled us as we lay on the mats doing crunches and leg lifts. Oh yeah, and a man in full running gear, sitting on a park bench with closed eyes, banging on his congo drum.

As soon as I started running on Tuesday, something was wrong. My knee hurt and it was slowing me down. I felt a sharp, unpleasant, stabbing sensation with each step I took. I considered quitting on my first lap, but didn’t want to appear to be pussing out, so I made my second lap but regretted playing tough guy. Instructor Ray took us down to the tennis courts. She told us that in order for us to be better runners, we need more leg strength. I didn’t fess up to my knee pain but she noticed it almost immediately and modified my workout. We did rotating stations of sit ups, fanny lifts, burning calf work, and step exercise which were all mighty challenging. I felt okay by the end of class, but the knee got much worse as the day went on. JESUS MARY MOTHER AND JOSEPH! Okay, it wasn't that bad, but I've always wanted to use that phrase on my blog.

Ray thinks my gimpy is an inflamed tendon, but it may be a ligament. I guess my self-diagnosis of iliotibial band syndrome was incorrect. I really wanted to have a syndrome, dammit! So I am icing it and taking ibuprofen and pretty disappointed that I can’t still work on my running. Never thought I'd catch myself uttering that sentence.

I was feeling mild progress with my running before the knee acted up. Now I just feel like a loser who has to sit out the runs and make small talk with the other injured people. During one of these conversations I learned that Instructor Keith blew his knee out last year and had surgery, but still can’t run anymore. What a ripoff! If I got surgery, I'd make them insert steel gears and fan belts and ball bearings and steroid cakes while they were in there to improve my performace to Robocop-like status, but that's just me.

Anyway, this is why Keith (or as I call him The Killer) does muscle building exercises with us. Today we did a series of pushups followed immediately by crunches followed immediately by sit ups followed immediately by crunches. It contined, but that sentence was boring. You get the idea. After some squats and lunges, he had us to horrendous crunches in which we had to pass a 25 lb. weight to our partner. The result was two gummy worms where my arms used to be. There was another serious of lunge, crunch, pushups and then finally some yoga. Whew! Hurting. Even the yoga hurt. Even my vagina hurt.

But you know what they say, pain is just weakness leaving the body. Farewell, weakness! I will miss you!