What doesn't kill you ...

Em from Joe's Used Toy Emporium invited me to be her friend at boot camp this week. I asked her if it was a good idea for someone who hadn't worked out with any regularity in about a month ... errrr, month and a half ... to try boot camp.

"It will be hard, but it won't kill you," she told me.

Well, she was right. It was hard as crap, but I'm still alive enough to write about it. It's taken me nearly all morning to recover (thank God I didn't have to work until this afternoon). And I'm definitely already feeling the burn.

Em was much more realistic about how I'd feel about boot camp than some of the other instructors: "It's fun!!" they shouted at us seconds before screaming at us to keep our butt down, get our knees up and for Pete's sake KEEP MOVING!! And when we didn't keep moving, we had to drop and give them ten of some sort of hybrid push-up/jumping jack thing whose name I've already purposefully forced from my brain.

Basically the workout consisted of a circuit of stations where we did some sort of strength activity like push ups or jumping jacks or lunges interspersed with sprints and shuffles and other cardio activities. The kicker of the whole 45 minute process is that you're never allowed to stop moving. The camp runs every day for a month, I think?

I completely understand the value of boot camp in trying to whip yourself into shape. It forces you to push, push, push your limits. I think the same people who are good at making themselves train for a marathon would find a lot of success in boot camp.

Unfortunately, I'm not quite there yet. Right now my greatest obstacle is, in fact, my brain. I have a hard time forcing myself to work harder because I've been in lazy mode for so long. My body was still an obstacle too: I was completely red-faced and dripping and gasping for air and spitting like a boy midway through the workout. But I completed it, and that was reward enough for me at this point. As a bonus, the extra exertion for the day earned me five bonus Weight Watchers points.

I doubt I'll be joining boot camp just yet -- but I haven't ruled it out altogether. But I definitely plan to ease myself back into exercising on a regular basis. Once I feel better about how much I'm exerting myself, there's a chance I'll use boot camp to push myself to the next level. In the mean time, what a way to kick off my renewed commitment to working out.