Reality Check!!!

Okay, so I just endured the hardest work out of my life-to date.

A week or so ago a friend told me about a "boot camp" going on in town. She said "its supposed to be really tough." She knows I'm a P90X'er and thought it would be right up my alley. Unfortunately, it turned out that it is on the same days and time as my classes at the gym so I didn't figure I'd ever go. But then Tuesday, my instructor from the gym, Shelly, told us that she was going to be out on Thursday (today). I thought, "hmmm...maybe I will check out that boot camp class after all!" I rallied up a few of my buddies (Rene & Rachel) and we ventured out to the high school football field at 9:30 this morning for what would soon become one of the hardest hours of our LIVES!

This is all I knew: Some girl was teaching it. It was free. It was at the football field. It started at 9:30.
This is what I thought: "Oh yah---tough! HA! I'm gonna go and show these girls what TOUGH really is!!" I expected maybe 5-10 overweight, un-fit women to show up. Maybe do a few jumping jacks, maybe some running, maybe a handful of push ups.

As I pulled into the PACKED parking lot, I began to get nervous---but the real nerves kicked in when I saw the instructor! The woman is like a solid muscle from head to toe. NO FAT. She is the first woman I think I've ever seen in real life whose muscles bulge everywhere without even flexing! (Picture those women who do the fitness competitions). Then when she began to talk, I could tell she was going to resemble Jillian from BL a lot. GO GO GO! PUSH PUSH PUSH! HARDER HARDER HARDER! If you're tired--KEEP GOING!
Oh! My! Gosh! What was I in for??? Us 3 girls just kept looking at each other like WHAT have we gotten ourselves into??
So...this is what we did:
Warm Up: Run laps around the field, jumping jacks, front & side kicks.
Circut Training:
Circuit #1: With partner, flip monster truck tires top over bottom up a hill and then back down.
Circuit #2: Lift a regular truck tire into the air above your head and throw it up into the air as high as you can. (over and over and over!)
Circuit #3: Traveling lunges down field and back. Run with a 70 pound back of sand over your shoulders to the end and back. Carry a 70 pound KEG to the end and back.
Circuit #4: 3 sets of bleachers. Run up the bleachers, across the top, back down. Repeat for all 3 sets of bleachers. (over and over and over!)
Gathered all back up together and did all kinds of varietes of planks, Plyo/squat jacks, Burpees (aka prison cell push ups).
Back to bleachers. Run up to the top and back down as fast as you can for like 5 straight minutes. Then standing at the bottom, either plyo jump (both feet) up onto the first seat (not step) or do a basic step (right, left) up and down as fast as you can. We did several intervals of these.
Back to the field in a bridge position--crab walks. Backwards and forwards, over and over. Then one leg in the air--hold and switch.
We stretched just a teensy bit and then GLORY TO GOD it was OVER! My heart rate monitor was going off almost the entire time telling me I was above my target zone. Once I looked at it and I was at 190! That's a record I think. I ended up burning 519 calories. For me...for one hour...that's a lot!

Sound fun? What really made it hard to almost the point of unbearable was the HEAT! It's in the 90's here already and getting up towards 100. I have never worked out out-side before so I was NOT prepared for that! I'm used to my nice air conditioning with huge fans blowing right at me. This was awful. There was no way to get cooled off. Even now, an hour and a half later, my face is as red as a lobster. I don't think it's a sunburn either (I wore 30 spf sunscreen thank goodness!). I just got THAT hot!

Anyway, I did find out that this same lady teaches this class 4 days a week. Tue & Thur at the football field and Mon. & Wed. inside a church gym. I may try to hit the Mon. & Wed. classes next week. We'll see! It's pretty cool because it's all free, they have childcare AND the best part was that we all joined together and prayed at the end! Awesome! Another cool thing was that I wore my P90X tank top so I got to spread the word about our awesome Beachbody business a little! Hopefully I did us proud and didn't look too much like a wuss out there! I kept reminding myself that I was "on the job" wearing that shirt and that if for no other reason, I had to keep going because I couldn't let people think that a Beachbody coach whose been doing P90X for a YEAR can't keep up! ha ha ha

BTW: Tomorrow I meet with the fitness coordinator at the gym to sign all my papers and get signed up to be able to teach at the gym. I have to show her a few of my routines so I'm a teensy tiny bit nervous but I'm sure it will be fine. I just keep telling myself that I am only doing this (whole instructing thing) by the GRACE of GOD. It is HIM working in me that makes me able to do this. If this is really His will for my life, I know that tomorrow when I am "put on the spot" I will do just fine. Still, feel free to say a little prayer for me! I'll let you all know how it goes!

For now, I'm going to go eat some chicken and drink a big glass of recovery drink!