The Booty Boot Camp - The Rest of Week 1

I have to admit, this first week did nothing but get harder. After the first two days, Day 3 showed another cardio workout (30 minutes this time) and Lower Body Strength workout #1. For cardio, I did a 30 minute run at a pretty good clip and then did the Lower Body workout.

This was actually a bit more challenging for me than the previous two strength workouts: It consisted of two sets of ten 1 & 1/4 squat. Challenging enough. Next, a band crossover. I ditched this move because I didn't have the proper equipment. Then I did the Half Frog - two sets of 12 reps. And lastly, the wobble board balance and sit. I happened to have a wobble board because Big E had bought one for some ankle rehab, and this move was VERY challenging. Since I dropped one of the moves, I did some of the Maya lower body squats and lunges to make up for the missing move, however, since yet again they didn't tell me what my target muscle groups were, I didn't really know what I could do instead.

The next day, Thursday, brought another 30 minute cardio workout and Core Workout #2. For the cardio, I was back with a cardio session with Maya. The Core workout only featured 3 moves and two of them, I could not do because of a lack of equipment (the Ball and the Bosu) so after doing two sets of 12 reps of the 60º sit ups, I added a couple of other good core moves: some V-Ups and some other pilates favourites.

Friday came with a 35 minute cardio workout (a lovely run with Tamsen) and Upper Body #2 workout. This was a good and straight forward one... well, mostly. I did three sets of 12 bench presses (could not do these at an incline since I did not have a bench that can incline), could not do the lat pulldowns due to a lack of equipment, did three sets of 10 lateral raises with 8lb weights (that was really tough for me!), three sets of ten hammer bicep curls and three sets of 12 tricep dips.

By the time Saturday rolled around, I was exhausted and it took everything I had to make myself do a workout. I really just wanted a day off at this point (being somewhat hungover probably didn't help my motivation). But thanks to a huge amount of moral support from Big E, I talked myself into doing my 40 minutes of cardio (a good session with Maya) and my Lower Body #2 workout: two sets of 12 Plié Squats, two sets of 12 Bar Bridges (I don't have a bar, so used 2 8lb weights), two sets of 12 side kicks and two sets of 10 ankle bounces. This workout was not nearly as challenging as the last lower body workout, but I didn't mind at all since I was exhausted and had a long run set for the next day.

I was a bit worried about this long run. I'd set out to do about 8-10 miles (as a bit of a taper before next week's half marathon) but having it come at the tail end of this full week of workouts, I wasn't sure how I'd do. For the Booty Boot camp, I only had to complete 30-45 minutes of cardio today (Sunday). That was not going to be a problem. However, the run was very difficult and I've been exhausted all day since then. I ended up only running 7.5 miles but decided that was fine. The fun part is that Paula Radcliffe then came on and congratulated me on completing my first 500 kilometres since I'd begun running with my Nike+ ipod on January 24th this year. So despite being exhausted and thoroughly worn out, I was proud of myself for not only completing this week of intensive working out and for having run so much this year.

The workout goes on to sketch out the next three weeks of workouts but does allow for 1-2 days of rest. I'll be taking one of those tomorrow. I can't wait!