Boot Camp Experience, Part 1: Be Careful What You Wish For

At the end of my Itchy post, I said I was running off to catch up with a friend. And indeed, that is what I did. Despite living in the same city, we have not seen each other for months. Many months! Such is the state of a parent’s social life. But really, there is no good excuse for this. One needs to MAKE time for the important things in life, right?These important things should not only be paying bills on time and managing mountainfuls of laundry. I swear, life must be able to offer more than this if we insist that it does.

People always say that one needs to make the time and that on your death bed you won’t be wishing you spent more time paying bills and doing laundry — but that is totally not the point! — these actually are important things that need to be done in real lives. Sure, they’re tedious, but they are important. It really is not an option to send my children to school with dirty clothes or risk losing the roof over their head because I didn’t pay my bills on time! So, I will spare you the whole deathbed lecture thing, because I get it.  But I am still going to insist that my life does include time for my friends — and hopefully encourage you to do the same.

Because that coffee break I told you of before? It gave me precisely the kind of “lift” that keeps a girl going. So my gut instinct that spending more time with my friends is going to help me keep my “itchiness” in perspective was right on target.

This particular girlfriend and I have always enjoyed an immediate connection. In fact, I met her in a business meeting more than 10 years ago now. Today, we are both “middle-aged” mothers of two young children who work full-time in the high-tech sector. And during all those years in between, we’ve almost been kicked out of countless tupperware parties, wedding dress boutiques and yoga classes for our tendency to burst into uncontrollable laughter when we’re together.

While I was catching up on her life, she shared with me that she’d started a hard core training program — Greco. I was really interested to hear how it was going, especially since I had recently considered signing up for a Booty Boot Camp, which I’d heard about from my bloggy friends at Losing It in Ottawa, but it had sold out. She told me that was going  pretty well.

This didn’t really surprise me, because my friend is a pretty tough gal. She is the kind of person who runs a 5 km race to raise funds for cancer within less than a year of having beat cancer herself, and then responds to your congratulatory words with, “it was only 5 km.”  But anyhow … I digress. All this is to say, that I am used to her not showing any weakness. She is strong and capable, and never pities herself.

It caught me off guard then when she continued to tell me about her Greco experience … “So yeah, the workout seemed just fine. I did the first session and didn’t have much trouble with it. But then the next morning I was going out to the car to take the kids to school and my quads were so sore that when I went down the front steps they literally gave out on me and I actually fell down on the ground — right on the front lawn of my house!” 

Oh my. That got me going! I was howling with laughter! (But trying not to get us kicked out of yet another civilized establishment!)

And then? Beep. A message arrives to my Blackberry:

Hi Julie,

Good news; I’ve had a spot open up so it looks like I will be able to get you into the 7:30 Booty Camp starting tomorrow night!

For the love of whipping you into shape,
Lauri
 

Stay tuned for more Boot Camp posts and see if I manage to actually walk to my car after the first workout!