March 2010 - As Suanie Sees It

Oh boy… Last week I skipped all of my Original BootCamp Malaysia sessions ~~because I was lazy~~ for reasons I shall not go into here. Almost forgot how fun, intense, difficult yet satisfying it can be until this morning when I managed to drag my sorry, lazy arse out to Astaka field.

After our warm up, Sergeant Sim gave us 10 grunts for a couple of late comers and another 10 for not counting the first 10 out loud. Then he led us to the circuit where we’d be doing our exercises that morning. Since blog posts with too many words and no images can be zzz, I have in my unselfishness drawn out a fantastic portrayal of this morning’s circuit.

In general, 6 recruits per stretch of cone. From the cones in the middle on top, you run to the 1st station focusing on cardio and lower body workout. After 30 seconds, bear crawl (1st set) / run (2nd and 3rd sets) to the next station where you workout with sandbags. 3rd station was upper arm/ body workout. Last station was a massive rope where all 6 recruits hold on to the rope and workout. Then run to the opposite direction where the exercises were the same, a mirror image. Each set lasts for 10 minutes.

First set:
1st station: Mountain climbers
2nd station: Deep squats with sandbag
3rd station: Military push-ups
4th station: Squats with rope

Second set:
1st station: Cross country
2nd station: Arm lift with sandbag
3rd station: King Kong push-ups
4th station: Thrusters with rope

Third set:
1st station: Frog jumps
2nd station: Get ups with sandbag
3rd station: Diamond push-ups
4th station: Jack knives with rope

Then a short jog before warming down. KennyBaby(TM) reckons it was about 400m, I’m not sure.

Felt great, I feel almost back into the groove now, though my arms are really sore at the moment. Oh well it’s all good. OBC Bring A Friend Day is this Saturday, 20 March 2010. My session is from 7-8am at Padang Astaka, PJ (near Cobra club). Anyone interested? Let me know, I’ll tell you how to sign up!

As some of you already know, I have the unfortunate tendency of saying ‘yes’ to some things before giving them much thought. That was how I ended up doing the SkyTrex Adventure a couple Sundays ago with some of my OBC friends. I had no idea what it was… something about ropes, dangling wires, dangling planks, up to 22m above ground…

What’s more, we ended up registering for the Extreme Challenge. BootCampers mah, damn fit mah, lansi mah, can do more mah… Never mind that the brochure recommends that you do the Big Thrill before going for the Extreme. Haiyah, two or three additional challenges only what… can one lah!

Bloody hell. SkyTrex was a huge slap in the face for me ok. Perhaps I didn’t show it, but I went home feeling rather deflated and disappointed with myself for not being able to complete all the challenges. That’s right, I cheated. Didn’t take the chicken exit, but I skipped about 5 challenges which according to my friends who completed them, were the toughest of all the challenges. Thinking back, I don’t think I could have done them then. Maybe next time lah. Errr next time? Probably never, lazy already.

After we were geared up and shown how to use our harnesses and cables, we had an easy trial run before our first challenge. Those were damn easy, I skipped and hopped through them. Hah little did I know.

The first challenge was hauling your arse up a long-ass ladder made of massive PVC pipes. We were stuck there for a while because there were 21 of us, and only one person could go up at one time. Some of them made it look so easy, e.g. Yati, Hafiz’s wife. So I tried to copy her style but massive phail, unfortunately. You’re supposed to kick yourself up to get to the next rung, right? Well I ended up using my arms a lot because gravity can be unkind.

The second challenge was a long flying fox across the stream. To me, it was the second most difficult challenge because I have a slight fear of heights. I got up there, prepared myself to fly (so to speak) but somehow my legs wouldn’t cooperate. Want to go, don’t want to go, legs akin to trembling jelly, wondering if I could just go home now, wondering wtf was I doing there on a Sunday morning when I could be sleeping or eating bak kut teh…

Then I heard my name being screamed from far below. I could make out Farhanah from OBC KL Alpha’s face and voice as she encouragingly urged me to take the next step forward. It was by coincidence that some of the OBC KL platoon recruits were doing SkyTrex on the same day as us, though at a later time.

Okay lah. Squat down… buttocks back, lean forward and… FLYYYYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!11111111

Damn fun lor.

My arms nearly gave way at the 2nd massive ladder up. It was the longest and most difficult for me and it took everything I had to get to the top. As Fireangel was at the same station as me, she took the ladder with the smaller PVC pipes and I took the one with the large massive pipes. That killed.

Another flying fox, and I decided to take a short cut because I couldn’t balance myself at the hanging barrels. I could see Bev et al struggling at the more difficult challenges. So I zipped through a flying fox to a station where a tiny ladder was waiting for us and ended up following behind Tate and his fiancée.

The rest of it was actually pretty okay. The only parts that hurt after that were my hands because the RM3 gloves we bought were sucky and only covered half our fingers. If you’re planning to do this, I suggest that you bring your own, better gloves (not made of cotton though).

Sorry, not much details of what we did because I’m in the process of blocking the painful ones out 😛 Also not a lot of photos of us in action because I didn’t bring my camera while doing the challenges. But here’s one of my bruised and battered left arm…

Whine whine whine. Okay lah it looks worse than it actually is, heh. Well, at the end of the day I had fun. Might not do it again because I’m a lazy @#&*@#, but at least I did (some of) it! Hehehe thanks people 🙂

For more information on SkyTrex Adventure, check out the website here. If you ask me anything not already listed on the website, I’m most likely to ignore you 😛