Boot Camp for Dummies

Hello Bloggers!

Today I am going to talk about my first experience with this tortuous thing called "Boot Camp". A friend of mine has blogged about this before and she is much wittier and more clever than I. The name of her Blog is Mother Hen. I am just going to share a bit because at this point, lifting my arms as high as the keyboard is just about all I can muster.

Back it up a bit, I've always been a bit of an exercise class snob. I've done my share, I "Jazzercised" my way through part of the 80's, although never a leg warmer have I donned. I've done step classes and they were fine, but I've never reached the cardio burn I get from running and always just pooh poohed them.

My friends Kara and Shannon have been regulars in this class for awhile, they recently recruited a couple other friends and voila, here I am on this Wednesday, nearly crippled.

It began at the glorious hour of 4:55 am. I pretty much hate mornings, so already I'm off to a very cranky start. I roll out of bed, cuz that's how I roll... ba da boom! I brush teeth, put on my workout garb, grab some coffee and jump in the car. Bonus, no traffic on the bridge at 5:00 am. That's probably the last silver lining you'll get from this blog. Arrive at the YMCA and look at the parking meter to see what I owe... I lied, another silver lining, don't have to pay til 8:00 am. Crazy people can keep their quarters, thank you very much.

I wander in and immediately spot Kara, who IS a morning person, yippee freaking skippy! She does dial it down and greets me with a subdued for her, "Dudster!" Shannon arrives and it's a party. We head up and I'm a bit nervous, but first thing you do is run 6 laps around the tiny track at the Y. Yes! Running is my favorite, so that was easy. Get in the room and my eyes are darting around nervously for this person they call Tina who I've heard is slightly mean. Kara introduces me and I say "nice to meet you". She said, "We'll see what you think after." Gulp.

The rest is a blur of me trying to follow directions while doing things like push ups, carrying heavy things over my head while running, more push ups, circuits of different things using my weak little runner arms. I was doing modified push ups aka the dreaded "girl" push ups only to realize that my sweat was making me peel out and I couldn't get a grip. That was fun! The wall sits reminded me of high school basketball, our coach called them "Green Chairs" and we had to do them when we cussed in practice. I was pretty good at those and I didn't cuss once today while doing them.

Fast forward, I made it through and it was fun, yes I know I'm a masochist, but it really was and I feel invigorated! Now, I will end this blog entry with a list of things that it's difficult to do when your arms are so weak, you can barely lift them:

1. Taking off your sweaty sports bra. Who knew, I thought I might have to get a scissor, I made it.

2. Washing your hair.

3. Shaving your arm pits, ouch, literally braced one arm against the shower wall, sorry for the visual.

4. Putting on deodorant.

5. Drying your hair.

6. Putting on your shirt.

7. Putting your hair in a bun. The salt in that wound is that after arms were up, I realized I'd grabbed the sweaty hair tie from
the torture class and didn't care enough to replace it.

8. Reaching up for bowl to make oatmeal (thank the Good Lord the oatmeal is on a lower shelf of the pantry)


I could probably go on and on, but you get the idea. I feel like I am going to be pretty sore, but hey, I survived it and it can only get better from here right? Question to fellow campers: Is it better or worse when Tina doesn't have a migraine? One of the thoughts I had...

Dudster is out (of her mind)

Silver anniversary

Hello bloggers! I wondered about the title of this blog, I thought about mentioning Maui, but then I thought, "No, I'm going old school on this puppy!" I didn't bust out the Burl Ives song or anything, but the "silver" anniversary is pretty stinkin' cool. We made it! I'm sure there were folks (you needn't fess up) who thought we wouldn't. I mean I was 19 and Bruce was 22. He was a college grad with a good job, but seriously, anyone who knew me probably thought I was pregnant or crazy or both.

Our official anniversary is January 26. We got married on Superbowl Sunday in 1986. Think Refrigerator Perry and the famous Chicago Bears' "Superbowl Shuffle" They creamed the Pats that day, turned out nobody missed much... didn't end the very long stream of oh so creative comments from well meaning men whose wives forced them to come. Give me a break, we had already ordered the invites when I figured it out... blame my sister who was still in High school and couldn't miss a basketball game. I would never have asked her to, that's how we rolled in the Hall household.

Fast forward to now... we decided to do it up big and head to Maui for a week to celebrate the big day. We went from Jan 20-27th. A great time to escape Oregon's dampness. Maui had been experiencing some rain, but we lucked out and the weather was great the whole time we were there. Some of our adventures included:

Biking off the Volcano. The volcano in Maui starts with an H and is a LOT of syllables. It is also 10,026 feet above sea level. For those of you who don't really know about such things... I ran a marathon at Lake Tahoe which covered from 6800 - 7000 feet. I had issues at that altitude, to the point of having to (ugh) walk at times and had a bronchial event after the fact that still affects me today. At 10,000 feet, I could barely get a full breath. The view was breathtaking and our very cool guide named Kimo was amazing and fact filled, also quite funny. After we toured around the crater we then drove down to a more human 6500 ft. for our "take off" point.

Now, at this point I should add that I'm not really a biker gal. I mean, I biked a TON as a kid. I was pretty able at managing a bike in my youth, I just hadn't really been... oh, how do you say??? A youth in a while. I didn't let this small fact bother me. I hopped on that bad boy and promptly freaked out! I was heading down a freaking mountain on a tiny little bike lane and having to break so much that my hands were cramping and my forearms were really tight because I was really nervous. It was a very nerve wracking first few miles, I'm not gonna lie. In fact, had there been a "bike cam" it would have sounded like this:"Whoa! Oh! Man! Whoa! Crap!" AND repeat! After the first few miles I became more sure of myself and by the end of the ride (22 miles) I was a pro. It was a blast and I am really glad I did it.

Adventure #2 was snorkeling at Molokini. This probably isn't an adventure, but I qualify it as one and I'll get to why. We got on a Catamaran and motored off toward Molakini. Along the way we saw a bunch of whales which are in Maui this time of year having and making babies. So cool! We get there and set off to snorkel. This is where the adventure is, for me. Bruce is part fish and loves this, I, however struggle. I, under normal circumstances have approximately 4 respirations per minute. I think this is a pretty low number. Put a snorkel mask on me and that number quadruples! It's quite a sight. I have snorkeled successfully quite a few times, but it's never without trepidation on my part. The trip to Molokini was no exception. My mask was leaking (stray hairs, I think) so I ended it early, but saw some cool fish and wasn't disappointed, Bruce had a blast, so all was well.

Next we departed to "Turtle Town" which is not a real place, put your globes away. It's a spot where the giant sea turtles are known to be. We got there, I got in, having fixed the rogue hairs and feeling way better about the mask situation. Immediately, I saw this giant one, so cool, just like the movie "Finding Nemo". I puttered around, having minded what our captain had told us about being still and letting them come to us. I saw another turtle and was smiling about my turtle seein' self. I then headed to the boat and got to see my third giant turtle. I was feeling pretty spunky and swam back to the boat. Turns out I saw the most turtles that day (murky waters). Got in the boat and looked over the side in time to snap a pic of one last turtle dude swimming under our boat. So, Turtle Town is my new favorite place!

We also went to this really funny comedy show and had lazy beach days but I would be remiss if I didn't share one of our people watching moments. We had staked out a place on the beach (Kaanapali). One of our first days we noticed that the waves were breaking on the shore. Quite dangerous. We watched a few unsuspecting folks get slammed. We chuckled, once we saw they weren't hurt, but Bruce mentioned that nothing would ruin the day quicker than seeing someone get hurt. Then this lady, who if I'm guessing was probably close to my age or older, so let's say mid 40's to 50. She wandered out into what Bruce and I had named the "Death roll". It was this place on the beach that just slammed you to the shore. She walked out there and in less than 30 seconds was SLAMMED to the beach. She staggered out of there, her bikini was askew and quite frankly... well... her boob was out! Her hair was a mess, she had sand all over her body, she was wrecked! Thank God, she was unhurt, but, bless her heart, she sat down in the sand and just put her head in her hands. She didn't fix her hair or anything, she just sat there. I was intrigued. A while later, her brilliant husband comes out of the ocean like a Merman... He sits with her a while and all of a sudden, I say to Bruce, "they're on the move". Holy Heck! They both start sprinting toward the surf, only when I say sprinting, I mean that she has these little choppy steps that don't really make her move very fast and sure as heck... BAM! Slammed again! She came back out again, sat down in much the same manner. Her husband came back and decided against another pep talk. They disappeared, never to be heard of again. Oh my!

We began our 26th year with a run together. Very appropriate, since we met as college XC runners. We have never really run together much since Bruce has always been faster than me. At this point in our lives, we are at a place and a pace that allows a run together. We don't manage it much at home due to schedules, but on this very beautiful morning of our 25th anniversary in Maui, we did. It was nice. We ran like 5 miles and enjoyed it very much. I thought if was a very apt beginning to our next 25 years together.

Our lovely week ended, but we'll be back. We always manage a vacation, I think we've done that well over our 25 years and feel confident we'll continue on that journey. So, to you nay sayers, I say to you, don't feel ashamed, you probably had a good thought; what did us couple of kids know back in 1986... we didn't, but I thank God every day because He did.

Dudster has been married 25 years.