A taste of my own medicine

I wanted to recount an experience I had this morning at Chastain Park with each of you to remind you how awesome you are at what you do and how you constantly change peoples lives. Thank you for everything you do!

So this morning I got my butt kicked at Chastain Park, by a 23 year old instructor with a quiet demeanor and a mind like a serial killer. Oh, that’s Erin by the way – the Fuller’s Park lead instructor currently filling in at Chastain.

When I got to the park for my Thursday workout, I thought, “Oh, Fartlek – this should be fun (and in the back of my mind I also thought, fun and easy). Well I asked about what the span of the fast group was and she said the slowest was 7:15 for a mile. I thought…hmmm I might be right past that, but I’m a sprinter, I can hang…ha! That was my first mistake.

Then I say HER – my nemesis. She is a machine. I love her and hate her at the same time. She has three kids, can hold an ab bridge for 8 minutes and wins her age group (older than me) at triathlons. Amazing. Well anyway, I see her and think, “Today’s the day. I feel strong, I can beat her. (Or at least hang)”. HA! That was my second mistake.

So off we go. Erin at the front, Tiffany at the back. We did a normal warm-up down the hill and then an Indian run and then continued down the hill. Well that was the third error in my “easy fartlek” thought pattern. Guess what? Oh you know, you’re all torturing boot camp instructors. Yes, we had to Sprint back up the hill and then do some crazy frog hops and then back down for more fog hops. Shist. So I think. Ok, I got this and I take off, sprinting up the hill. Well this particular hill at Chastain is the VERY steep twisting U-turn hill that used to be pitch black, but now has lights – wonderful. (If you can’t sense the sarcasm, you should start to soon). Four repeats, pushups, squat turns and tucks jump later, I was toast. But that was only 20 minutes into the workout.

At that point I remembered how awesome support instructors can be. If it wasn’t for Tiffany, I would have gone home or sat down at least. But she was right there with me (and I wasn’t the only one – actually there were 1 or 2 dudes that took turns eating my dust –ha! At least someone did). So the next set of torture came in the form of suicides. Now I am bizarre - I hear that word and I think – I can do this. I LOVE to sprint. So off I go. Sprint 1 – I won! I beat HER! HA! Sprint 2 – She beat me down and we tied coming back. But unfortunately that is when I discovered why SHE participates in boot camp. Because she has 2X the endurance that I do. As an instructor this is where I normally stop and rest while the campers keep going. (Mental note in plan to beat HER – do one more than I want to next time). Then the pushups got harder and then next sprint got slower and then I couldn’t breathe. But that was when I heard the voice of an angel – Tiffany was right there encouraging me to keep going. And I did!

But that wasn’t it, folks, we also did more sprints, shuffles, dips, crossovers and even an Indian run on the way back. This is where I realized how awesome The AMERICAN Boot Camp Company is! Because as I was getting my butt handed to me on the way back up the hills for the final 10 minutes, my instructors wouldn’t let me quit. Oh I wanted to! But they didn’t and I didn’t and I feel Awesome today because of that. But the workout doesn’t end here. NO, remember I said Erin was a serial killer. So we get back to the lower field and that is where she destroyed me – bear crawl backwards up hill. My body wouldn’t do it. I saw stars and I actually had to stop and go forward. I officially had my butt kicked! AND I LOVED EVERY MINUTE OF IT!