Bootcamp and Mandarin podcasts

This morning it was raining and the alarm didn't go off. Not that the alarm not going off was a problem as I am trained into getting up early now. It was waking TB that made me feel slightly guilty, particularly as I knew the rain was pouring down. He had expressed less than his usual enthusiasm for bootcamp the night before because of the weather. He'd also had quite a stressful day, with a major family issue being sorted out at long last.

You did note the word "slightly" in the middle of that rambling paragraph. Yes, I woke him up. He complained about me waking him when it was raining, but I was over the whole guilt trip by then. I did think about going without him, but I decided that harmony at home was more important than exercising in the rain street cred. I also decided that getting up was a better option than keeping TB from his much needed sleep. Of course, the rain out our way stopped right on 6:30 am. Ouch! Fortunately, half way through the day I looked at the weather radar and saw that the weather was moving across Canberra from my side of town. Hopefully, it was still pouring at 6:30 am at Lennox Gardens. I guess I'll hear all about it from Krissi tomorrow morning.

I took my bootcamp gear to work for my lunchtime session, but I was hoping it would continue to pour rain all day. No such luck! At 11 am, Billy called to see what the weather was like out our way. Enough people wanted to do bootcamp, so it was on. That's when I checked the weather radar, as a last ditch effort to avoid any exercise today. No such luck. All the weather was missing us, until after lunchtime.

With everyone else in, I had to get my act together. Wouldn't you know it? It was a fantastic session. It started with the usual skipping and jumping warmup. I can skip for two minutes now, which I'm really pleased about. We did two sessions of skipping followed by two sessions of jumping. I think we did 2 mins followed by 1.5 mins of jumping. I am able to jump back and forth across the rope for the whole 2 mins now. How cool is that?

We then did a 2 mins on, 1 min rest set, starting with star jumps, followed by power squats, the bottom half of burpees and pushups. I killed the star jumps. Everyone else was way impressed but I knew it was all down to being able to run. Not that I let anyone in to my secret. The power squats are a challenge, but I kept on going through them. I was a disaster in the burpees. My tummy was in the way, so I did little jumps. I also found my arms tired really quickly. I did the best pushups I've done for some time.

Then we did some running. I was last, as ever, but I handled it fine. We had to slow jog or fast jog, depending on the instruction. In the middle we did a few power squats, then finished with a "burst". I was "bursting" away, miles behind everyone else.

After that, we put on the gloves and boxed. I boxed first, and my arms were simply dying. Usually, we swap over in the middle, but we did two sets of boxing before swapping. When it was my turn to hold the pads, my arms were still dying. I could certainly feel the burn! I somehow survived, mainly because Kirsty doesn't hit that hard. Thank goodness.

After that we did another set of starjumps etc, 30 secs of each without stopping. It seemed much easier than the 2 mins, even though we weren't having a break. It was a fantastic bootcamp session. We were all really pleased with how we did. The whole group tries hard. I thanked Lisa for getting me there after the session, as I had so much not wanted to do it.

When I got home tonight I did another half hour in the garden. I find the squatting to weed is really good for me.

I've discovered some free Mandarin podcasts on iTunes. I had already booked some cd's from the library, but I'm on a waiting list. Isn't it great that there's so much stuff out there for free?

Now for my next challenge. Learning to speak with inflection. I get so confused. It's just as well that so many people around the world speak English!