"Mocking mere mortals"

This is what my hard-earned t-shirt from the Boot Camp Games says.  And the event yesterday morning was  nothing short of it!

Pretty tired but happy...!

So yesterday morning I pushed myself to what I think it's my very physical and mental limits (to a certain extent) because I came to learn that your body will do only as much as your mind will tell it to. I had a pretty rough start with the power push exercise, which was the very first one in the competition: pushing 100 lbs contraption across 100 meters of grass. THAT WAS was excruciatingly hard and painful for my poor legs. I was lucky to have Hrishi there to boost me up and the trainer that was timing me. It really helped as a few times I felt like I was going to give up.

 The power decathlon and weights exercises followed. Pretty tough, especially the 90 lbs deadlift as I hadn't trained for that heavy of a weight. I actually trained for only half the weight so when I saw the 45 lbs iron grips on each side of the bar, mentally I was like "oh no, this is going to be impossible!" Somehow I made it through the 10 reps. After the power decathlon came the 1.5 mi obstacle course (endurance portion of the event.) By the time I got to the obstacle course I was dead tired, my heart rate must have been in the 180's for 10-12 mins now and was not slowing down. I got 2.5 mins break before I started on the course and finished it in 9 mins. I even sprinted on my last lap. It was pure awesomeness!!! It's incredible what adrenaline can do for you! Works miracles, I tell you!!! My approximate overall time for the whole event was  a little over 25 minutes. (The results will be posted online soon, I hope. I'm really curious to see how I ranked out of all the female participants.)

It was fun to be there, the competition atmosphere, the army of personal trainers rounding us up for the event, timing, and cheering, family on the sidelines, the occasional breeze in a pretty hot day.... all in all a great thing!

The best little supporter ever, with Gatorade on the sidelines

The beastly power push

The V-ups were a piece of cake after deadlifting 90 lbs

Ropes, easy

Catching a breath here and there...



This is my fave picture. Hrishi did such a great job capturing the moment! :)

It's really of hard to put in words how and what I felt. It was SIMPLY AMAZING and worth

every single heavy breath  (and there were a lot of those!), muscle pain, and drop of sweat. I did it to prove myself that I can do hard things (in the physical realm) that get me way out of my comfort zone,  and that my body is ready after all these months of impeccable training. And I also did it to hopefully help Ella see through my example that one can do difficult things and no matter how hard something is, if you put your mind to it, you can do it. I've been preaching this to myself and her for a while now but I think it's a good thing. She was such a trooper, standing, watching, and cheering there for me in the heat. She even brought me water. Hrishi said she was quite amazed with all that was going on. At times I thought she'd be scared to see mommy's almost disfigured face when lifting those heavy weights. Ha-ha!

I am so thankful for my amazingly supportive Hrishi and Ellie and for a great trainer who helped me get where I am today and sneaked the thought of signing up for this in my mind. And I am grateful for a healthy body, willing mind, and God's allowing me to do this.