| Thursday, February 22, 2007 |
| ‘Boot Camp Update’ or ‘Yes It’s Been Confirmed – I’m Insane’ |
My fears were confirmed this morning – I am extremely aerobically unfit. I only managed a 5.2 on the beep test which is absolutely bloody abysmal. I was the first person in my group to opt out (ie collapse outside in a panting, sweating, red-faced heap). Luckily there was another group to run after me, and one girl only got 4.2 (she is very overweight with asthma though, so that would be for her a very good score and even more embarrassing for sickeningly healthy me) and another girl was out at the same time as me. I think that one of them will be my partner. Probably the second girl, because I do go well with strength stuff (except darn sit-ups). I don’t understand how I only managed 5.2 – I go hard at spin cycle multiple times a week and still remain totally and utterly unfit.
Then we had 10 minutes (God, was it only 10 minutes???) of running up a slippery (it was drizzling) grassy near perpendicular hill, doing ten jump tucks, coming back down, doing 20 squat jumps then doing it all again. Oh, and as two girls stopped moving we had to do 20 burpees (weird name, ‘instrument of torture’ would be more appropriate. It’s where you squat down, throw your legs back so you’re in push-up position then jump back up and reach for the sky. In one movement. Try doing that 20 times) and as another couple (one of whom was one of the girls who stopped, so she earned us all TWO punishments) were 8 minutes late we had to do 80 push-ups. I’m glad to say they don’t worry me. I felt a little chuffed the girl in the ultimate micro bikeshorts who managed 8.something in the beep test struggled with the push-ups and kept stopping. He he he. I may be totally slow and unfit but at least I have something going for me!
After all of this (I still cannot believe it was only 10 minutes. I think the trainer only says that) we then went up to an oval to do some sit-ups and hovers which was actually a nice break. This proves how hard the other stuff was, as anyone who has had to do hovers would know. We finished the session soaking wet and totally and utterly covered in grass clippings. The oval had been mowed the day before and stuck to us because of the rain. I even had grass in my undies, somehow.
I am now officially dreading Saturday morning. I have an entire hour of what we only did for a supposed 15 minutes. I am very nervous that I just won’t be able to complete it and will stop, therefore causing more pain to my group as they do burpees yelling my name with each one. |
posted by Cecilia @ 12:35 pm  |
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| Tuesday, February 20, 2007 |
| 'The Camp of the Boot' or 'I must be certifiably insane' |
Oh. My. God.
What Have You Gotten Yourself Into This Time Cecilia???!!
I have joined a boot camp. In case you aren't familiar with the term 'boot camp' or you are like my officemate and I have somehow given you the impression that I belong to army in the time you have known me, boot camp is basically an old-school fitness regime, based on the drills and hell-on-earth army recruits get subjected to.
Today was the 'easy' day with just testing to see how fit we are. And we were 'lucky' in that the instructor's cd of the beep test was broken and we didn't have to do the
tests plus the beep test. I'm sure everyone had to do the beep test at school at some stage. It's where there are two lines a set distance from each other, and by the time a beep sounds you have to have reached the other one or sit out. The catch is the beeps get faster and faster the longer you stay in the test. I think I managed 5.6 back when I was 15 and in the prime of my rowing fitness, so goodness knows how I'm going to go now. My oldest brother, incidently, set a new record for his school with 14.something.
Bootcamp operates in partners, and you get paired with the person closest to you in fitness. I know that there is know way I'm going to be paired with my friend (her idea of a challenge is running a 42 km marathon, and for recreation she runs 20 km a day), but I am very worried that I'm going to be paired with the one 'mature' lady. The class consists of about 30 people, probably half male and half female, 95% of whom look amazingly fit, and for whom this is their second bootcamp, some of whom are competitive athlethes. And then there is one mum. She totally is your typical forty-something mother - short hair with a couple of comfortable rolls about her middle,
not hugely fat, just a bit podgy. You have to admire her for doing the bootcamp with basically people who could be younger than her children.
I am living in fear that I will be paired with the mum. That I have the fitness of a 48 year old woman who has done no exercise since 'before the kids'. I was the worst in the group at situps, even the mum beat me (5 to my 4, which she had to come and
gloat about!!) but I was good at pushups and tricep dips and okay at squat jumps. Maybe me calling myself 'good' at pushups and tricep dips is a bit of a lie - some of the girls got over 100. But I beat my friend the marathon runner (so what if she can run 42 km in Qld heat?) which is something.
So all I have to do now is hold out long enough in the beep test so that I'm not paired with the mum. Oh shit, have just had the worst thought ever - what if I drop out BEFORE the mum???!!!!! Oh, the total and utter
humiliation. I could never face all the girls wearing micro bike shorts again!
I am eating chocolate biscuits. Why am I doing that? What is the POINT CECILIA of going to boot camp if you are going to eat chocolate biscuits at 9.12 am??!
Then I arrive at uni, shower and head up to the office, thinking smugly 'yay, at least here's ONE day I'll be here before my officemate' and then, low and behold, our office door is open and at 8.15 am she is here
typing away. She nearly fainted away at shock at beholding me before 10 am, let alone before the official working day has even begun. She was forced to comment on my earliness to which I replied 'I know, don't get used to it!' which she had a little laugh at and then wanted to know if there was any reason I was so early, to which I had to say "Oh, I'm doing
a boot camp" and then try and explain to her what a boot camp was. I failed miserably at this, as demonstrated by the fact that a minute after our conversation ended she asked me 'so how long have you been in the
army?' Me, the army! Ha! To which I explained hopefully much more clearly that it was run by an aerobics instructor, based on military training. Her rather expressive face demonstrated yet again how very far
we are apart in our way of thinking and our choice of recreational activities, because she looked at me as if to say 'who needs to do that?' which is kind of understandable, given that she rides her bike everywhere and takes multiple day hikes with all equipment strapped to her back through the wilderness for fun.
So I was totally out of breath and actually had a STITCH just from our warm-up today, which was running around a gym. Lots. Just for 'warm-up'. Then we had to see how many push-ups (feet touching the floor, my usual legs crossed and in the air was prohibited), sit-ups (arms behind head, come all the way up and elbows go behind knees), triceps dips (off a damn high bench) and squat-jumps we could do in 2 minutes. So here are my results. I had better post them so I don't doctor them at the end of a month to pretend I'm much fitter than I am. When bootcamp is over in one month I will post my new results and hopefully there will be improvement. At least in my sit-ups! My abysmal sit-ups!
Pushups: 52
Situps: 4 (oh the shame)
Triceps dips: 87
Squat jumps: 60
Now, everyone out there, take on the challenge and see how you do. Make sure you run around your backyard for about 10 minutes FAST first though.
Here is some of the correspondance the bootcamp instructor has sent us, just to demonstrate how deeply over my head I have gotten myself:
1. BE EARLY
For every minute you are late, the whole team does pushups. Saying your name with every pushup. RING me if something terrible has happened and you are going to be late so that I know. This is critical as we have two groups and are running on a very tight time budget
2. KEEP MOVING
If anyone stops moving at any stage once the session has started: 10 burpees. “Keep moving” means jogging on the spot.
3. SHOW UP
Boot Camp works provided you show up. You MUST come. You have committed and I am going to hold you to it. You will be paired with a partner after the beep test; someone as fit as you. If you do not show up, your partner will have no partner. This will make their session of boot camp next to impossible. Don’t let them down. I will not pair you up with someone else if your partner is absent and unaccounted for. Get each other’s mobiles. You’ll feel pretty bad lying in bed being lazy knowing your partner is out there trying to do the drills on their own. You will fill out a form for me with the dates you will be away. If I know you will be away, no worries, I will partner your partner with someone else. If you wake up one morning and you are sick as a dog – and I mean SICK as a dog not just a little bit tired you MUST RING ME BEFORE 6am or 7am for the later group. You must. DO NOT PASS A MESSAGE ON THROUGH YOUR FLAT MATE/GIRLFRIEND/BEST FRIEND: YOU CALL ME. No excuses. You miss a session and I don’t know why, the very next session you will be punished in front of everybody, and I will pick on you the whole session for being unbelievably soft, lazy, uncommitted and uncool while everyone else had the guts to show up.
So think of me, 7-8am Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings for the next month! |
| posted by Cecilia @ 2:13 pm |
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| Thursday, February 01, 2007 |
| Nip/Tuck |
Ok. Melbourne. Well, the first thing you need to know is that Cec is very, very pretty: five foot nothing of chestnutty hair and blue eyes and pale freckly skin and straight white teeth. She’s gorgeous. My male friends LURVE her
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BUT, probably since puberty, Ceci has hated her nose. For someone so little and quite delicately boned, she’s always had a reasonably big nose. In my opinion this isn’t a bad thing (I quite like big noses, I think they’re a strong look) but she has HATED it with a passion for at least the last ten years. AND, since the woman has more money than things to spend it on, we went to Melbourne (translation: FAR away from disapproving parents and friends) so she could get rhinoplasty
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As far as I can tell, the surgeon has thinned the bridge, re-shaped the tip (which has gone from being a hook to a ski-jump) and corrected her deviated septum (which was the only bit of her nose job I could actually understand. It wasn’t horrendous, but it WAS crooked)
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And I wasn’t keen on Ceci having this surgery (more especially as she’s about to flit off to Europe for some time and could have spent the money on buying a Russian husband for me!) as she’s so pretty she didn’t need it and I’m positive she’s the only person who could see the faults she hated so much but her new nose, even still quite swollen as it is, is AWFULLY cute. She looks absolutely great! She’s gone from dreadfully cute to really quite smack-you-in-the-face adorable
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She, of course, will have to tell you more about what went on at the clinic so please beg her for details (I’d like to know it all too!), and maybe to let you be emailed the before and after photos, because they’re groovy (I also have one of her bruised, bandaged and feeling very sorry for herself)
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Honestly, her surgery was so trauma-free (as far as she’s told me! And if you discount the fact that someone died on that operating table last week) that it has me thinking again about getting MY cosmetic surgery done... |
| posted by Bug @ 8:49 am |
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