If You Were Children or Animals...

That's pretty much how my first workout since the triathlon started (yes, I've been lazy all week). Drew and I went to his trainer, Billy's, bootcamp class in the Park this morning in the 90+ degree heat and Billy said, "If you were children or animals, this would be cruelty. Instead, you're adults, so it's okay." Um, yeah, I'm not sure if it was. It was bloody hot out there.

Drew and I walked to the Upper East Side meeting spot like usual. I think I normally would have jogged and Drew did suggest it, but I knew I'd be too hot and grumpy if we did that. Once we got there and met up with the few other people who braved the heat, we got right into it. We started off with 100 jumping jacks and didn't really slow down from there.

We did some jump lunges, squats, push-ups, etc. And then we did them again. After that, Billy had us do an Indian Run down to the Fountain. He gave me a hard time about not sprinting fast enough when it was my turn to run to the front of the line, but I wasn't too worried about it. By the time we got to the Fountain, I definitely already had the onset of a headache and was feeling really hot. The whole time today, I really couldn't believe that I had done a triathlon in this heat a week ago. I guess it was a couple of degrees cooler last week, but maybe it was the adrenaline that made the difference as well?

Once we got to the Fountain, we did some jumping around up the stairs, lunging around, more push-ups, a couple of quick short runs and then we did that again and again. After each round, everyone was stopping to get water and take a quick rest break in whatever shade we could find. There were lots of tourists walking/sitting around looking at us like we were crazy. I think we were.

The jumping on the stairs is really hard for me. Somehow I'm totally inept at jumping with two feet at the same time. I'm a great one leg jumper, but I think I'm missing the gene for two-legged jumping. Drew always tries to help me and I think I actually did a better job today than I've done in the past, but it's pretty sad to watch me versus everyone else. The best I can do is to try to swing my arms and gain some momentum from that to propel both of my legs at the same time. I've resigned myself to being a bad jumper. Luckily, there aren't a lot of situations in my daily life where this is critical.

I was worried about my elbow since Billy generally makes people do a lot of push-ups, but it held up okay today. There was a part where he wanted people to do one-armed reaches (in a plank position and then lift one arm up and reach behind you, then switch arms). I opted to just do straight push-ups during that part since I already know that doing one-armed stuff on my left arm does not make it happy. Especially in the humidity of today. It sort-of throbs just walking around in this crazy humidity and I'm trying to keep it as happy as possible.

After we finished up doing exercises all around the Fountain, we ran back to the UES through the Ramble. Well, truthfully, it was more of a half jog/half walk. Once we got back to 86th Street, Billy had us do a sprint to end class. Billy said that it was about 300 meters, but I think that might have been a little bit long for where we started from. But, that's roughly right. Somewhere in the 0.17-0.18 miles category.

The boys took off way ahead of the girls, but I was determined to leave it all out there. I knew if I started really pushing too early, I'd never make it, but I think I did a good job of pushing it just enough and then really starting to kick toward the end. There were two other girls doing the sprint and they were both ahead of me when we started until about half-way. Then I started gaining on them and ended up passing both of them at the end. I did the sprint in 1:00 exactly, which if I could really sustain that would be less than a 6 minute mile (ha ha ha!). I'm still pretty proud of that. Although I was done at the end of that and was ready to walk myself home and to the grocery store for some breakfast supplies!

All in all, not a bad workout for my first one back after the triathlon. I'm not going to be as lazy going forward as I was this week. Although I know myself and without anything to really look forward to, it's not going to be easy to motivate myself to get up in the morning and get out and workout. Good thing Drew and I signed up for a duathlon ... in October. I'm sure that's enough to get me up and out the door every once in a while!

In totally unrelated news, I found a picture of the actual log that I ran into in the Hudson River last Sunday while I was swimming. It just so happens that one of my Terrier teammates that wasn't racing took a photo. So, without further ado, here it is:


Doesn't look so scary there, I'll admit. But you try running into it when you're swimming in a dark river known for having bodies floating around in it!