For those of you who I haven't told, I have taken on the challenge of a Fitness Boot Camp.  Boot Camp Web Site  I started the five-week program on April 7th.  Here is my account of the experience.  Hope you enjoy! 

Hey all.  Sorry it's been so long since I've given the update.  I guess I was giving you time to digest the plethora of information I put in the previous emails.  I often tell my students that I sometimes get diarrhea of the fingers.

Last week was a pretty easy week for Boot Camp.  We missed one day because the trainer's son was sick.  We were "supposed" to work out ourselves that morning.  I decided to run with Fletcher.  I ran one mile with him.  Apparently one mile wasn't manly enough for him, so he did a second.  I'm pretty comfortable in my manhood, so I went home.  If he had the challenge of waking Christie and Riley up in the mornings, he would have gone home, too.

One thing we did last week that really sucked (and carried over to this week) was the "Front, Back, & Go" drills.  Basically you start out on your feet, moving your feet as quickly as possible. ("quick feet")  Then he yells one of the three commands.  On Front we get into push-up position and do push-ups.  On Back we flutter kick on our backs.  On Go we get back on our feet and back to the "quick feet".  We did this a bunch (probably not as long as it seemed).  Tough, tough, tough.  We continued to do it until everyone moved "with a sense of urgency".  (i.e. - until everyone actually did everything)  Again, I almost felt bad for inflicting this stuff on the football players when I was coaching.  We made them do Up-Downs.  Perhaps there's something to this karma thing!

On Monday we did some actual "Boot Camp" drills.  We went out onto the soccer field and did some military-style crawls across the field.  It wasn't too bad.  Really, the worst part of it was that there was little to no grass (much like my front yard right now) in the place I was.  So I crawled across the field on my elbows through sand and rough weeds.  Not a big deal, though.  Squat-jumping across the field sucked way more than crawling!

Anyway, today we did our final PT Test.  This was the test to see how far we've come.  I think I actually made some improvements!!  I did 50 push-ups (this improvement didn't surprise me much because we've spent at least a third of this course on our hands in a push-up position!), 35 sit-ups (ugh - still not good.  But we didn't really do much ab-work in the course, so it's not surprising.), and the run in 21:30.  Not bad.  I actually went up in each of the three categories!!

Here's the scorecard, in case you haven't been keeping track:  ;-)

PT Totals for Week #1:  Push-ups:  11  (ugh)   Sit-ups:  28   2-mile run:  26:34.

PT Totals for Week #3:  Push-ups:  37  (Woo Hoo!)   Sit-ups:  29  (ugh!)   2-mile run:  23:30  (not bad, but still not good)

Final PT Totals:  Push-ups:  50       Sit-ups:  35  (I only increased six?!?!?!)   2-mile run:  21:30

I'll have to write one more email after tomorrow that summarizes the whole ordeal.