cindy's world

I have a dream…

I want to eat “bad” stuff once in awhile without worrying about the ramifications.
I want to eat on a whim without planning for it 2 weeks in advance and creating a 3000-calorie deficit first between now and then.
I want to be ready to go do anything athletic on a whim without having to train for it first so I don’t die out there.
I want to be able to hit the beach or a formal occasion on a whim without having to drop 10 lbs to look good in a swimsuit or a formal dress first.

The first two statements and the last two statements seem like they should be mutually exclusive. Either I eat what I want, when I want, and be happy with having a few extra pounds on me, OR I’m trim and athletic. But they’re not. I’m gonna force both categories to coexist. I restarted the Insanity program today. It’s been nearly impossible to do at home due to our very small house, but I did Day 1 at lunch today in an empty jury room, borrowing another courtroom’s carted TV/DVD. This was actually Mr. W’s idea, and it worked out well. I was able to do the 40-minute program AND make it to my 1pm meeting, with only some shaky legs to pay for the time spent. Okay, I admit it, I didn’t put in the solid 40 minutes; I took breaks when I needed it to not overexert since my first attempt at Insanity was such an epic fail. Even if I have to half-ass it through my first 60-day circuit, I’d be in better shape than NOT doing it, which will allow me to relax my strict dietary guidelines (because I know I would have either already burned off the calories, or that I will in the next day or so), and be able to just up and do a race or, say, the Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge next month, without having to do a lifestyle overhaul in preparation. Yes, thorough preparation makes its own luck.

Not that I don’t like the kale salads and the chia seed beverages…

…but there’s a container of white chocolate turtles behind me at work that I don’t want to curse myself out for eating (I only eat 1 a day, and not every day), and I want to sleep rather than lay awake in self-loathing after I attend a Mexican food and tequila pairing event in Laguna Beach next week.

I feel good right now — and I know I should feel better because I’d neglected to take iron supplements the past 2 days (careless me). I’m looking forward to dropping below the next 10s in weight.

Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge. Saturday, September 25, 2010. Who’s with me?

Yeah, I know, my last time was such that I never thought I’d do it again. But let’s not leave the Boot Camp experience on that note.
Read about my 2007 experience here.

The Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge Obstacle Course kicked my ass. I was going to do a blog post where the title is “Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge” and the body of the post is “I don’t want to talk about it.” That’s it. But Vicky told me to blog my experience because in the very least, I did it, I finished the course, and how many people could say that? “Uh, like a thousand this year,” I told her. =P Mr. W pointed out that of the thousand, there were many who finished after me, and even some who had to be taken care of by the paramedics on-site.

This was the worst race I’d ever run. I’ve felt bad in my own practice runs in the past, but I was never this far off the game in an actual race before, and that includes the Disneyland Half-Marathon that I ran without training for in which I developed a blood blister under a toenail and eventually ended up losing that nail. THIS race, I had to run while my period was going on. THIS race, I was anemic AND out-of-practice for after a week doing nothing in Hawaii. If you’re a distance runner you know about the first minutes of feeling like crap during a run, and then establishing and maintaining your rhythm where your body works efficiently with your breathing and you feel like you can run forever. I never got there in this race. After the first eighth of a mile, you hit three consecutive hay stacks you’re supposed to leap over as drill instructors yell at you to move it you lazy slow maggot. Mile two, you hit the obstacle courses all the way until you have about a half mile left of the race. The first obstacle was a series of hurdles, made of thick round logs and at a height of about my chin level, so I had to hurl myself over the top with one leg, swing my other leg over in a pirhouette and twirl off the log onto the next log, for about 5 consecutive logs. And then there were the over-under-over-under obstacles, and tunnel crawls. There’d be a 6-foot stack of logs you had to go over, then upon landing after jumping off, you run 5 feet to crawl under a cargo net as instructors scream at you to hurry up on the other side with encouraging words like, “Well you aren’t FIRST, let’s just put it THAT WAY! That’s great, just HOLD UP EVERYBODY ELSE! THAT’s a good strategy! When I talk to you I need to see your MOUTH OPEN IN A RESPONSE! It’s SIR YES SIR!” They pretty much didn’t pick on me, but one did yell at Vanessa, “TODAY, ladies, TODAY! Get OVER it, TODAY!” and with her Navy military training, she yelled back, “SIR, TODAY, SIR!” as I rolled my eyes at the drill instructor. Good thing he didn’t see me, I could only imagine what he would’ve said to me, considering this other time when one was yelling at another girl, Vanessa smiled and the DI caught her and ran next to her, yelling, “What are you smiling at? DO YOU FIND THIS FUNNY?!” “Sir, no, sir!”

It was a very, very humbling experience. I had an incapacitating pain in the midst of the course that felt like sharp cramps on either side of my stomach, and a few steps farther, the pain permeated my body and I felt it through to my back. I was afraid my kidneys were going to burst. All my organs were twisting inside of me. I had to slow to a walk as I gasped. Vanessa never left me. I remembered back to the beginning of the race, when we were standing by the start line after all the individual men had started and we were waiting for the individual women to start 15 minutes later. She turned to me and said, “If I die out there for ANY reason, keep going.” I’d told her, “If I die for any reason out there, call 9-1-1!” Little did I know how close I’d come, or so it felt.

Oh yeah. Fox holes. Deep holes in the ground, about 3 feet deep, 5 feet wide, you simply jump in and then jump back out the other side of and then continue on the course. There were water hoses and sprays, but no mud in the fox holes. The freakin easiest thing on the whole course was the pushup stations. You do 10 boy pushups (on toes) or 20 girl pushups (on knees). All the women around me did boy pushups cuz who wants to waste time doing 20 when you can do 10 and move on?

Vanessa’s boyfriend Jay and Mr. W kicked ass. They crossed the finish line together in about 25, 26 minutes. Vanessa mentally prepared me for a sprint-ending with “You ready? You ready?”, which we did and we turned the corner and burst through the finish line at full-on sprint when the clock read 45 minutes, so taking into account the 15-minute delay at the beginning of the race as they held all the individual women back to give the men a 15-minute lead, Vanessa and I did the 5K course in 30 minutes. Ouch.

I never did see Dwaine, tho, and as of right now, he’s still missing. I’ve left him a ton of voice mails on his phone and did not get a callback all weekend. =P

The confirmation e-mail sent by the Marine Corp for Saturday’s run has this paragraph in it:

‘THE COURSE: 3-mile run with obstacles throughout. Run is mostly flat. The obstacles range from hay bales to fox holes, to walls and tunnels with 60 drill instructors “encouraging” you along the course. View course map at www.bootcampchallenge.com.’

I find it funny that the word “encouraging” is in quotes, cuz Vanesssa said that she watched a drill sergeant run alongside a tired man last year at this event and scream in his ear, “You gonna let a woman beat you? What’s wrong with you? Where are your balls! Come on, you pussy! Run!” I’m gonna see if I can get more men yelled at this year by passing them. Hee hee.

“What’s a fox hole?” I asked my judge, former Navy.
“It’s a deep hole in the ground that soldiers dig to stay in when they’re out on the field,” my judge explained.
“Like a ditch?”
“No, a ditch is long. A fox hole fits one to four people.”
“Oh. There are foxholes on our obstacle course. I wonder what they’ll have us do with them, just jump in and jump out?”
“Well,” he said with a glint in his eye and an amused smile, “If it’s an event put on by the Marines, it will probably be a mud-filled fox hole.”
“It IS a Marine thing!” I wailed.

What do I wear?!

Remember the Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge? It’s this Saturday morning. Here’s what we have been doing the last few days leading up to the event.

ME
Having spent the past week in Hawaii not hitting the gym, I cranked it up this week. During my lunchtime workouts, I’ve increased the weights (slightly) to strengthen myself, been incorporating runs and sprints into my warmups and cooldowns, doing “real” pushups in my circuits. I did the heavier legs stuff earlier on and then tapered off so that I wouldn’t be sore the day of the run.

MR. W
He did an early morning 4-mile run over the weekend to acclimate to the running conditions on the day of the race, and is hitting the gym again after his week off in Hawaii with me. He’d planned on doing some evening runs during the week.

VANESSA
She IMed with me on Wednesday:
me: So are you taking [your new boyfriend] to SD for the run?
Vanessa: He is going to do it to
me: as an individual or as a group?
Vanessa: ind
me: we’re all individuals.
Vanessa: he found out it was at the Recruit Depot and signed up
me: that’s what happened w/[Mr. W].
Vanessa: lol Marines!
me: that’s cool. I’m excited.
Vanessa: I’m excited too
me: when are you guys leaving for SD?
Vanessa: I dunno
me: are you staying down there?
Vanessa: He lives in San Clement so it’s close by
me: oh.
Vanessa: Maybe 6:45
Vanessa: i started going to the gym during my lunch breaks on M, W, F. I just started this week
me: oh, good for you.
Vanessa: Thanks!

I happen to know for a fact that her “date” (i.e. the new boyfriend, congrats, Vanessa!) for the event has been hitting the gym pretty hardcore lately, too.

DWAINE
we e-mailed Wednesday:
Me: Are ya ready? It’s this Saturday! Do you have a bunch of coworkers coming along?
Dwaine: I haven’t even thought about it. I haven’t run since the Mud Run. I probably shouldn’t finish this beer in my hand as part of my training.
Me: oh, finish it. It’s only wednesday. (BTW, the angel on my other shoulder tells me to tell you that if you drop the beer, you’d be sober enough to work out tonite in preparation. It’s already Wednesday!)
Dwaine: tell the Angel on your shoulder that “I can quit when I went to!”
Me: “went to,” eh? Looks like you’re already one past quittin’ time.
Dwaine: &*$@#!!!

Months ago, Vanessa signed up for the Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge which is to take place Saturday, October 6 at Camp Pendleton in San Diego, California, and extended an invitation to me to do the same, which I’d declined. The event is described as such on the event website:

EVENT FEATURES
The first and best! A fun and furious 3-mile course featuring obstacles used only by Marine Recruits at the Marine Recruit Depot. Get “encouragement” along the way at each obstacle by MCRD Drill Instructors. Compete as an individual or a member of a 3-person or 5-person team.
Great post-race party with plenty of music, food, drinks and beer, awards to the top 3 finishers in each category/age group, official race T-Shirts to all entrants. A very memorable day!

A couple weekends ago while hanging out at Mr. W’s male best friend’s (both men are former Marines, btw) house, we watched a new reality show called “The Academy” that depicts Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department recruits go through their “boot camp” training at a training academy local to us. I watched these people struggle on obstacle courses and wondered aloud whether I could pull off that training course. Mr. W had replied, “Pssh. You could do that entire obstacle course blindfolded.” Really. Hmm.

And then while hanging out with Dwaine last weekend, he was so enthusiastic about the obstacle course Mud Run he’d done that day that I thought about Vanessa’s prior invitation to this event. This morning, I finalized the talking-Dwaine-into-Boot-Camp-Challenge and registered myself. Yay!! Just to keep Mr. W in the loop, I put him on the email mailing list to confirm my registration, and I just spoke to him, and HE registered!!! DOUBLE YAY!!! He’s familiar with the training grounds from his own Marine Corp training days, and said the obstacles “are a blast.” Anyone else out there wanna join?