Self Imposed Boot Camp

The President of the United States spent much of his very long press conference trying to convince all of us that we are at war. War with an unseen enemy. Ok, so I decided to take this seriously! I am enrolling myself in self imposed boot camp! That is right, Private Reams has signed up for the service and this morning I reported to duty and I am officially in boot camp now. I figured that boot camp needs to really suck, that was the chief and primary objective. Consequently I have set myself up a schedule. This schedule works right now because I do not have any scheduled travel or onsite meetings. I am basically working all the time now, so I keeping active and moving around is a great idea.

First off, I am doubling down on running. At 6am, 10am, 2pm, and 6pm, I am going to run around my block 2 times. That equates to 4 miles a pop. So effectively, I will be hitting 16 miles a day this week. Hoorah, or is it Oorah? Army or Navy? During my around the block double circuit, I have picked a virus free spot to drop and do pushups. Since I have already built up a pushup regimen this will not be too difficult. However, I am going to ramp it up. I will do 20 pushups a lap and increase it by 5 each day. I will add other body weight exercises later, yup, you can do anything for 20 seconds!

I figure this will be my M-F regimen, my family is being encouraged to join me at various times. They need to get off of streaming and video games anyway. On Saturday, I will figure out something brutally challenging that I can do and then take a complete rest break on Sunday. Time to suck it up soldier! So far so good, my morning run was great. However, there is more to my boot camp than just the physical.

I figure if I am going to go through this crisis, then I might as well show up on the other side in better condition than I started. This includes physical fitness, but also nutrition. I am inspired to get back to basics, because in our recent shopping trip that was all that was left!! So after each running session, I am going to load up on calories coming from the most basic whole food sources. I also have setup a 16oz cup of water to drink right when I come back in the door. I also plan to hit the mental and spiritual as well.

After the 6am run, I am carefully planning the day to fit all the important things in. Work related, personal goal related and family areas I will plan in between the running sessions. For example, after the 6am run, I will have a four hour block to get my planning done, inspirational and spiritual reading, write this blog, have a few meetings and accomplish at least 1 really important work task. After the 10am run, I will eat another healthy meal, do a meditation session, work on a small project here at home and accomplish a few of my work related goals. I will continue this type of effort all the way through the 6pm run and then spend the rest of the evening with my family and preparing for the next day.

So here we go. Feet fail me not. Embrace the Suck! Who will carry the boats?

Guy Reams