Friday morning is always the worst BC session for me, for a number of reasons. First it is the end of the week, secondly it starts at 6am (not a time I like to see too often), thirdly it is usually cold and often wet, and finally it is usually run by both Gary and Guy.
So this morning I was shocked into life by the alarm and I stumbled out of bed, wondering if last night's rain had cleared. Getting dressed on auto-pilot, I quietly snuck out to the car, realised it wasn't raining, which was a bonus, and then discovered it was only 7 degrees, brrrrr. So it is way too early and way too cold for sensible people to be outside training.
Arriving at Alexandra gardens, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and was sent running towards the Tan. The Tan usually means just one thing, ANDERSON STREET HILL, which sent a shiver though my body. Now a session on the Anderson Street hill is always tough but I was still recovering from Wednesday night. What happened on Wednesday night you might ask? It was cold and wet so obviously the perfect night for BC to tow Gary's truck up and down the beautiful tree-lined streets of South Yarra. A tough ask at the best of times, especially with Guy at the wheel and the back filled with all sorts of torture equipment. This task was made even more difficult for me by 10 KG weight vest strapped on me - so a nice gentle Friday session would have been nice.
When we get to the Tan, Gary's evil apprentice, Guy was waiting for us. We did a few stretches and headed up the stairs, which made me wonder whether we might be in for an easier, hill-free session. Sadly I was wrong, very wrong indeed. We spent the whole session running up and down the down the grassy hill, which is much steeper than Anderson Street and we also had to do approximately 60 grunts, 100 push-ups and 97 squats (yes I skipped 3 squats) on top of the running. As well as the running the got us to do bear crawls up the hill - a mere 10 sets of them.
At some point through the session we were given respite from the runs though, Gary and Guy allowed us to do walking lunges up the hill but first we had to do sets of pull ups... oh joy. A question for fellow bootcampers; Why does Gary feel the need to push you down when you're doing pull-ups or push-ups? Still it wasn't as bad as when he jumped on my back whilst I did squats!!! What was interesting was the good cop bad cop routine that was happening. Gary being the good cop, suggested that hindu push-ups could be a way of ensuring everyone kept their butts down as we did the bear crawls (have they seen a brown bear crawl???), so Guy, being Gary's bad cop, dished out encouragement in the form of hindus - and they say there's no I in team!
So another Friday morning session out-of-the-way and I know that this time next week I'll be in Lisbon, where it's mid 30s and sunny. Still I have Mitch's Saturday boxing session to smash in the morning, anyone care to join in? If you're lucky you get to thump an instructor - a training highlight for me...
