A Good Challenge

So today in bootcamp, we had to do a circuit. It was a pretty garden variety 6 station circuit. Well, that is until the rowing station became the challenge station rather than the rest and recuperate stations. Usually when we have rowing as part of a circuit, we are given a target for the number of meters we should row before time expires and we move to the next station, but most of us (ahem, read I) usually take it easy. This morning was a whole new ball of wax.

At the end of the instructions our trainer tells us that after we complete the circuit three times, we have 100 burpees to do. There is a catch, and isn't there always? If we row our 200 meters in 45 seconds, we can knock off 5 burpees for team 0700. I, of course, wasn't planning on rowing 200m in 45 seconds, but throw a good challenge at me and the threat of burpees and I was there.

And just in case you don't know what a burpee is, check this video out. It’s the best I've seen… the music is classic. I like it because it shows a full burpee (burpee's w/o pushups at the bottom are ½ burpees), just sayin'.

The ones at the end are burpees w/ a pull-up, just in case you're that badass.

I guess I need a good throwdown to get me motivated, but it sure as hell worked. I got my 200m under time on all three of my attempts. Actually, I was coming in closer to the 40 second mark than 45, so that makes me really stoked. This is huge progress for me as back in January I couldn't row without pain in my knees from my tendonitis. Just another example of why it's not always about the weigh-in at the end of the week.

O, and I am this close to getting my jumping pull up…


p.s. not only did team 0700 not do any burpees, we wiped away all the burpees we "owed" for left behind cups, and we racked up 35 for our trainer to do. She is such a good sport…