Day 15

This morning, I awoke to a roaring, rumbling thunderstorm. The rain was pouring down and I could see quick flashes of lightning out my bedroom window. I knew that if I didn't get up before my fingers found the alarm clock that I was not going to make it to Bootcamp today.

So I had to make a decision. "Do I lay here and enjoy the storm snuggled tight under my covers?" or "Do I drag myself out of bed even though every fiber of my being is giving me every possible excuse not to?" The thoughts flowed as fast as the rain was coming down outside, "GET UP, GET UP, You're just going to feel bad later if you give in to this momentary desire, Nagging, nagging, GET UP!!!! Don't you dare touch that button...No you won't do it tomorrow, right now is the time, TODAY, Wendy, Come on, You Can Do this!!!!"

And my feet hit the floor. Teeth, ponytail, breakfast, out the door.

The rain had slowed down quite a bit by the time I reached Rob's office building but it was still quite breezy and misting.

I wondered what we'd be doing today, fearful and dreading a repeat of the sprints and running that we did earlier this week. After a few minutes, Rob informed us that we'd be working in his studio today. "Whew". Although I didn't know what was to come, I knew that it had to be better than running.

Stephanie, Rob's assistant, took us upstairs, the 7th floor, to the Studio. When we walked inside, it was a complete gym set-up. I walked through the first room which seemed to have every piece of work-out equipment imaginable, treadmills, ellipticals, free weights, medicine balls, kettle bells and mats lined the edges of the floors. Then we walked into the Inner Sanctum. Wooden constructed "boxes", a fan, more weights, and one window. Bright orange posts (pillars, maybe) with some type of tow-strap apparatuses attached to them, motivational Marine posters and pictures, a Marine Corps flag, an American Flag...

We all looked around and wondered what we'd gotten ourselves into for the day. My thought were, "I'm sure that Rob painted these pillars orange and chose bright blue floor mats to off-set the feeling of being in a torture chamber, or in the least, a dungeon."

Anyway, we stretched, did some step-ups to get our heart-rate going and then we found out what those "tow-straps" were.

T R X

We used the straps in a variety of ways, using the resistance of our own body weight to complete a series of exercises that worked every major muscle group from legs to neck and shoulders. The hardest part of the work-out for me was the core work. Being on all-fours and hearing the directions "Get into the stirrups..." I couldn't see very many faces but I did make eye contact with one other person and lets just say that we definitely hesitated for more than a second before getting into this very compromising position. I don't know about what other people were thinking during the core exercise portion of our work-out but I know that I was thinking about. What do the letters TRX really stand for? Knees to chest, in plank position, T-Torment? Torture? Knees to each side still in plank position, R- Ripping? Rate of sweat droplets falling from my forehead? Then legs swinging side to side, still in plank position, X X-treme? X-cessive?

This was a very challenging, new way to push my body to the limit! Just about the time I had reached my fatigue level max, I heard the words, "That's it. Good job. We're done."

6:30 already? Even though it was a really tough session, it went by really fast. And I made it!!!

Week 3 down, only one week to go in this month of Boot Camp. I'm excited to see if I've improved in my scores next week. I definitely feel like I have. I still look forward to every morning and I'm 100% sure if I can manage to come up with the money every month that I will continue with Boot Camp. It's really helping me establish good daily routines and habits for myself. Honestly, I'm pretty sure that if I wouldn't have had the accountability of someone knowing that I didn't show up today, I probably would have stayed in bed this morning, I guess that's how I know I'm not ready to do this on my own yet.

But I DID GET UP and from where I'm sitting, the sky might still be a bit cloudy and gray but I know that the sun breaking through!!!

In case you're wondering, Yes, it was a metaphor...