Beauty Through The Pain

Day One of Boot Camp: 500 jumping jacks, interspersed with a thousand lunges (right foot, left foot, backward, three-quarters), 300 squats (regular and "sumo"), at least 675 arm raises, which looked easy and harmless until I did a hundred of them (arms out at shoulder height, palms up; raise arms over your head until they meet with a delightful clap!; lower arms and repeat fifty times, then forty, then thirty. . . you get the idea), then tens of 8-point push ups (on a wood floor, and I'm a knee push up girl so my knees are COMPLETELY bruised), and sadistic, painful "mountain climbers," which can only be demonstrated, not described. They are not ladylike.

And some other stuff which I have, thankfully, forgotten. By the time I left the gym ALL of my muscles were entirely spent, meaning I could barely lower my ass into the driver's seat of the car. And thank christ I didn't ride my bike to the gym, as I had thought about doing; I'd STILL be riding home.

Throughout the day, the pain settled in. Never had I experienced muscle soreness the day of the over-exertion; this usually happens to me the next day, after, say weeding the garden or embarking on a new leg-lift routine. But to be sore and hardly able to walk down a flight of stairs the same day? Never happened before. I was NOT looking forward to today.

For good reason. Heaving myself out of, or lowering myself into a chair takes all my effort and about five whole minutes. At times today I needed help getting up out of the chair, and I'm not kidding. I tried stretching, doing more squats, clasping my hands behind my back and raising up my arms (just a little), and more stretching. Last evening, I went for a 45 minute walk with my dog, allowing her to pull me up the hills. All of this was my determination to keep the blood pumping and get the lactic acid out of those muscles!

Didn't work. I have not been in this much pain in many a year.

I have never been more thankful for the disabled grab bars in the bathroom at work. I needed them today, and was reminded--painfully, but thankfully--that my pain and soreness was a result of my fully-functioning body going through a wide variety of strengthening exercises. And I have no complaints. Whatsoever.

Tomorrow I get to go back. We're doing core conditioning. On the floor. I hope I can put myself down upon it.