Step It Up - I can still walk
When last we left young Luke Skywalker, he was about to face certain death in his expected conftrontation with the Dark Force (sorry, wrong topic).
After two more days in the Step It Up fitness program, I can still walk. Granted it feels like there are 45 pound weights attached to each one of my legs. I may walk funny, but boy am I feeling better. Just to recap what has brought me to this state, I’d better fill you in on the last couple days. As you may have remembered, Monday was evaluation day. Tuesday was the real start.
On Tuesday, we got going with a warmup jog and came back for our dynamic stretching/warmup drills. I always thought jumping jacks were easy, but when your legs are sore this really starts to burn pretty quickly. Warmups included a variety of exercises that I would love to explain in detail, but it may be better for you to experience in person.
After our stretching exercises, we got right to the heart of the matter. How best to torture the campers. It’s an easy recipe. Find a hill, have everyone do 10 decline pushups, rollover and do 10 incline situps, rollover and do 9 decline pushups, rollover and do 9 situps and so on until you get to zero. I personally found it a great refresher course on how to count backwards from 10. And maybe you saw this coming, but I certainly didn’t. For nostalgia sake, we then worked our way back up to 10 rotating between pushups and situps. I’ve never had such a close rapport with grass in my life.
After that, we did a variety of other drills, but I really would hate to ruin it for you by telling you all of the fun games we get to play. Needless to say, we’re definitely waking up some muscles that haven’t been abused like this for quite awhile. In a couple weeks, I’m sure I will consider it to be a good thing, but right now it hurts.
Day 3 - Hump Day - still not adjusted to this 5am thing. Started off with our usual warmup jog, with one exception. Apparently, Lisa did not get the memo that it was a warmup jog. It seemed to be more of a sprint around the Market Village. Do you realize how hard it is to window shop when you’re buzzing through? After our warmup sprint, we did our dynamic stretching exercises, starting with 85 jumping jacks. Boy, that was fun. My legs just about exploded. One more and it would have been pretty ugly.
Well after Day 2’s fun activities, I was really looking forward to seeing what our instructors were going to dream up for us today. They came up with a couple neat games. The first called quarters, involved 60 seconds of pushups, followed by a sprint, 60 seconds of situps, followed by a sprint, then 60 seconds bows and toes, followed by a sprint, then 60 seconds of lunges, followed by a sprint, then 60 seconds of body squats followed by a sprint.
That seemed like enough, but that was just the beginning because apparently the lesson today was on understanding seconds. So we then repeated the drill, but for 45 seconds for each item, then 30 seconds, then 15 seconds. Now that I got a refresher yesterday on counting to 10 and back and today’s lesson on seconds, I’m hoping we’ll cover the alphabet tomorrow.
The second really fun game was called snake. We all lined up diagonally across the field. Everyone started doing pushups. The first person had to run (snake) through the line of everyone doing pushups, then the second person, then third, etc. until the line had completely moved. We then did it again with bows and toes.
Of course, the moment of the day was when we were finished and heading out to the parking lot. The landscaping company arrived and wondered what we were up to. To see the expression on the gentleman’s face when it was explained that we’d been there exercising since 5:45, was priceless. He couldn’t believe people would get up that early to exercise. That makes two of us.
Of course, Step It Up is more than just exercise. It’s about fitness which involves eating right. Frankly speaking, it’s a whole lot easier to endure working out for an hour than it is to eat healthy all day. I’ve actually been doing very well through 2 and 3/4 of my first three days.
Unfortunately, I had to make a trip down to No Mas in Castleberry Hill tonight to check out some furniture. Seems harmless enough, but unlike their original location on Huff Road, the new location also has a restaurant. Do you realize how hard it is to shop for furniture with the smell of Mexican food wafting through the air. And even better yet, there just happened to be a business reception there, so everyone was milling around the store with margaritas and food. I was about ready to gnaw on my hand.
So needless to say, I didn’t eat as healthy for dinner as I should have. I did actually manage to avoid the alcohol, even though the margartas looked awesome. It was my first trip to No Mas Cantina. The salsa was a little different. More of pureed salsa, a little on the sweet side, with just a hint of smoked chipotle peppers. The margaritas (someone else’s) were served in large pitchers that appeared designed by Dale Chihuly. We tried the fish tacos and shrimp enchiladas. The food was okay. Definitely won’t come close to competing with Nuevo Laredo for food. But what it lacks in food it makes up for in ambience. It’s located in the hip Castleberry Hill district and has a great patio area and the indoor seating is spectacular. Certainly beats the plastic tablecloths at my fave Mexican restaurant, but I’ve always been more about the food.
You probably never thought an update on boot camp could turn into a restaurant review, but that’s what’s so exciting. You just never know where I might wander once I start writing. Until next time…
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