Saturday was the first day of fitness bootcamp, which I mentioned before. I was already concerned that I would be the only guy there, surrounded by soccer moms, and I wasn’t disappointed.

When I arrived at the local gym where they start from, I noticed that one by one lots of women were showing up, but no guys. Oh well, this was about me getting in better shape, and I can interact with females just as well as with males.

After everyone arrived (and I changed in the required group tshirt), we set off on a run to a local park. That was where it started going downhill - right at the beginning. I am not a runner. I don’t run. If I have to go somewhere I walk or drive. I was exhausted after the first two blocks, and so I moved back to the “slow group” and entered a jog instead of a run. We paused to do a quick set of deep leg bends, and when I stood up to set off on the jog, both of my legs gave out of me. I nearly hit the ground. Talk about not being in shape.

I certainly don’t think of myself as completely sedentary, but this really pointed out how little I use my body on a daily basis - especially sitting at a desk most of the day. So once again I went with the slow group as we continued the jog to the park, whereupon we began push ups, lunges, jumping jacks, relay races, and any number of things that worked my body to the point of exhaustion.

I was breathing harder than I’ve ever breathed in my life (and I’m still coughing from it); my arms were aching; my legs were screaming at me; I was by far the slowest person in the entire group. I don’t feel bad about this, however, because everyone else that was there had done this before. I was the new guy, so to speak. So I watched as 14 girls ran circles around me, literally.

The instructors were motivational, but firm. There was a lot of “Come on Buckmaster!” but there was also a lot of “Good job Heath! Keep going!”.

By the end of the hour I was kaputt. I walked the mile back to the fitness center, and by then, everyone else in the class was long gone. I splashed some water on my face, got in my car and went home. Whereupon I slept for about 3 hours after taking a shower that gave my body chills. I was barely able to eat two strawberries, and downed about half a glass of water before I thought that would be enough. It pretty much demolished the entire rest of my day.

I couldn’t walk around the house without being in a lot of physical pain; my headache throbbed despite taking a lot of ibuprofin; it was overall a complete body attack. I pushed myself way too hard on the first day, having not worked out in years.

But, I’m paid up for 5 sessions of this, so I’m assuming I have to keep going, atleast four more times. I’m sure it will get easier, and the “burn is good”, according to other people who I have talked to…but I tell ya…I totally got my butt kicked in that first workout. Even today I am barely able to walk around the house, and forget about picking up laundry…that takes 10 minutes just to get myself near the floor so I can scoop it up.

Anyway - that’s how day one of fitness bootcamp went….hopefully I’ll survive another 4 weeks.

This sarcastic entry was posted on Sunday, September 21st, 2008 at 1:00 pm and is filed under About Heath, Fitness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.