We then went to Sal's place to "prepare" for our trip to the camp, all three of us were getting butterflies about what was in store for the weekend.
We arrived at camp just before 7pm, found our dorm & got changed into our workout gear. We met wqith Nick & Dan - the other 2 trainers on camp - & were given a fluoro vest & a dowel which we had to keep with us at all times unless instructed otherwise.
Sharon with "Anthony" & me with "Lyndon" - yes, we were still smiling at that point!
We were "pumped" - how hard could this be??????
We went into the meeting room with Dan - one of the trainers & had a motivational session - awesome - this camp is going to be fun! The calm before the storm we now call that time!
Time for our fitness tests so that we could be split into our levels of fitness - 2 minutes each of maximum push ups, sit ups & shuttle runs - from memory I got 54, 35 & 13. That put me in group 4 which was the bottom group, but I had told them about my foot injury so I wasn't too fussed with that.
All was going well, we were having fun! This camp was going to rock!
AND THEN we got taken to this (note that we took these photos the next day) -
Nick advises us that all this stuff needs to get moved "down the road" & we were split into 2 teams of 14 - groups 1 & 2 and groups 3 & 4. At that point, we were still feeling ok, until we realised that the jerry cans were full of water & weighed a lot & the kettlebells weren't those 8-12kg ones either. We each grabbed an item & stumbled along the dirt track, in the dark with our headlamps on - oh and we still had to cary our dowels at the same time! We had no idea of where the end point was, or which way the road went up or down or when it curved etc it was madness!
IT WAS TOUGH! After a while, it didn't matter what you carried - we were swapping items over to share the load - everything was so heavy! At one point I had the rope wrapped around me - just little old me - and I thought I was going to fall over as it had all looped to the front of my body - hard to see when it's dark. The logs were painful & heavy, the tyres were a pain in the butt, the jerry cans were hell, the kettlebells were evil - OH and yes - we PAID FOR THIS! Our group stopped to take stock & have a breather, swap items over etc, we ended up sticking our dowels down our tops at the back so at least we then had 2 hands....little did we know that we'd pay for that later on as it was a "safety breach"!
At this point, I noticed that Commando Steve had joined us - I didn't like him very much at that point & we were only 30 minutes in!
50 minute mark is announced & we're thinking - awesome, now all we'll have to do is load all this stuff on to the 4 wheel drive that's been up our backsides the whole time, surely they won't expect us to carry it all back hey?!
WRONG! This IS Commando camp after all. We had 45 minutes to get all the gear back, working as one whole team together. That's right - 5 minutes less to get it all back & we were all smashed & exhausted already. Punishment for being late back was 5 burpees for every 30 seconds for the whole team! We did the math & worked out that even at the same pace on the way up that would be 100 burpees!
On the way back, I took the rope but then had to stop to wait for the rest of the group, Commando tells me to put the rope down & go back & help? I'm thinking no way am I unravelling this heavy rope just to go and put it back on again so I told him no - you had to be there, I laugh about it now, but I'm surprised he didn't make me do 10 burpees on the spot there and then for snapping back at him!
We finally get all the gear back to camp & find out about our "burpee debt". We did burpees in the dirt - proper chest to ground burpees, hard burpees, we get to 13 & someone's chest hadn't hit the ground so we had to start again! I think we got to 30 or so in the dirt, then had to do another 50+ on paving, by this time, I was a wreck, I was tired, exhausted, absolutely smashed physically, mentally, emotionally & every other way that you can imagine. I was crying my eyes out with each burpee as my hands & knees smashed in to the hard ground, knowing that if I did them wrong that we would all suffer. Sharon then got upset as I was upset & then a girl from team 1 - Morgan - came over & did the remaining burpees next to me to get me through.
Burpees by night!
Once we were finished, I burst into tears & had a big hug session with Sharon. Nick came over & said "you got through, well done". Little did he know, in my mind I was ready to pull the pin & leave. Commando Steve then appeared and said for me not to overthink it & get some sleep as I'd need it. I still didn't like him very much at this point - he was such a big meanie! Sharon & I were both terrified of what was in store for the rest of the weekend!
By that stage it was past midnight & we'd been up for around 23 hours. We stumbled to our dorm, had a quick shower & went to sleep exhausted, emotional & bruised.
More to follow - that was just Friday night!
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