In which I kick ass

So high off I love Bootcamp juju I attended a class last night making up for one I missed a couple of weeks ago.

Just before I left the car and headed into the gym, I checked my phone and saw a text from my friend and fellow bootcamper, Deb: "FYI testing tonight."

Oh, crap, a timed testing circuit.

Testing is hard, and for me harkens back to the evil Presidential Physical Fitness test, which I could never pass.

With last night's circuit we had 30 minutes to complete the following:

100 medicine ball chest passes
100 squat jumps
100 tubing rows
100 military presses
100 crunches
50 push-ups
50 side leg drops
10 laps of the gym

We can do them in any order, in any amount and jump around so you alternate upper and lower body, but you eventually have to do them all in order to finish. The whole point being you get a little faster every time you're tested, about every 6-8 weeks.

The one thing I was super concerned about was the push-ups as I am decidedly not awesome at them.

Luckily, we could do modified push-ups (from the knees), but 50 would still be challenging because they had to be real push-ups: no head-bobbing, no groin-dipping - back flat up and down shoulders to elbows. If you get caught cheating with poor form your last 2 push-ups don't count. Ack.

I knew I had to get them out of the way relatively quickly before the military presses turned my arms into Ramen noodles, which they do when I have to do 100 presses in a short period of time.

I started chipping away at the exercises, knocking off 25 at a time, alternating between upper and lower body exercises so I didn't fatigue either area early and make it hard to finish. When it came to the push-ups, I'd do 10 then switch to something lower body. I can't do more than 10 in a row without wiping out.

I felt really good and our trainer kept our tallies, letting us know how much we had left to close out each exercise and finish the circuit.

Once the push-ups were over, I felt home free and concentrated on knocking off the rest. All I wanted to do was finish under 30 minutes and I did. I finished in 20:07. 20:07! Holy crap! That time is insane - insane - for me.

I still can't believe I finished so quickly, but then I definitely know I did have testing because, literally, my arms are crazy weak right now and my quads are a little cranky.

But I finished with my best time yet.