The Few, The Proud, The Exhausted |
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| Let's get one thing straight: Before May 10, the closest I ever came to "boot camp" was a summer day 10 years ago when I spent several hours at a Denver shoe store trying on cowboy boots. Must have tried on three dozen pairs. The owners were so impressed with my stamina they offered to buy me lunch.
Maybe I'm confusing boot camp with boot couture, but you get the idea. I had no firsthand insight, let alone experience, with anything military, save a misguided purchase of camouflage bell-bottoms when I was 15. So why was I bent on enrolling in military-style boot camp? Even more astonishing, why was I signing up for a program that required me to wake up at 5:30 a.m. four mornings a week? I didn't have any good answers. All I knew was that I had reached a lull in my exercise routine, which consisted of 40 minutes of brisk walking on a home treadmill while watching the "Today" show. I was bored silly. Katie Couric was starting to annoy me. And worse, four times a week of diligence had turned into a slackish three and sometimes two or none. I needed a change. Maybe, in retrospect, boot camp was a radical move. But after six weeks of basic training, it was exactly what I needed to jump-start my lazy boo-tay. It also was invigorating, hard work and a chance for camaraderie, though the 6 a.m. start time was a wee bit early for this butterfly to be social. Our "drill sergeant," Neal Krenski, 31, known to recruits as "Sir," assured us on the very first day that we would see results if we stuck with the program and pushed ourselves. Not to the point of injury, he cautioned, but to where, while gaining speed and strength, we would feel some pain. "And what is pain?" he asked. "Sir, pain is weakness leaving the body, Sir," said those in the before. Pain is weakness leaving the body. Who knew? What boot camp is like, at least for this soldier. DAY ONE: Boy, 5:30 a.m. is really, really early to wake up. Thankfully, the program is only minutes from my house, at the Webster Groves Recreation Complex and the neighboring track at Hixson Middle School. At this hour, you don't want to be driving too far to exercise. I arrive a few minutes ahead of the 6 a.m. start a little nervous that everyone will be in better shape than me. The blurb about the program said something about each session ending with a group run. Run? I haven't run in years. |
I enter the gym and notice at least half of the 30 or so in the room look befuddled, like me. I also notice that the majority, while reasonably fit, aren't supermodels. They range in age from their mid-20s to early 50s.
Sir wastes no time. He begins with a few warm-up stretches before plunging into 35 minutes of hard-core calisthenics. He demonstrates each exercise but expects us to pick up on them quickly. Some are familiar, but have different names. For example, "side straddle hop" is a fancy name for jumping jacks. When Sir barks "front leaning position," that means we ready ourselves. When he yells "drop," we drop into push-ups, with him slowly counting, 1-2-3-1, 1-2-3-2 and so forth. Clearly, Sir needs a little help with his math. DAY TWO: Boot camp has a nickname? Flash, H20, Krusty, Fly Daddy, Rocket Man, Duke, Fanatic: These are just some of the nicknames of the returning veterans; roughly one-third of the class has been through the program before. Sir, also known as "Bullet" because of his speed, promises that once he learns a little something about the recruits, we'll all have a nickname, too. I just pray mine isn't "Slow-goin' Mama," or worse, "Pathetic." DAY THREE: All of us recruits are seriously muscle sore. The pace of the class is incredibly demanding. Sir gets us going right at 6 and keeps us moving for the full hour, with only a few seconds' break for water. Today Sir has us running "caterpillars." We jog in a straight line around the track, and the person at the end of the line sprints to the front. Does Sir know no mercy? DAY FOUR: Today we're tested to see how many sit-ups and push-ups we can do in two-minute intervals and how fast we can run a mile. Why am I not excited about this? I pair up with another recruit named Kayla, who, like me, is among the slower runners in the class. I lie on my back while Kayla holds my feet, in ready position for sit-ups. Sir starts his stopwatch. Much to my surprise, I manage 41 sit-ups in two minutes. Even more surprising, eight military and 20 "daisy" push-ups follow. (Daisy push-ups are a kinder name for "girl" push-ups, which allow your knees to be on the ground.) |
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