Boot Camp + Cake

My weekend started with this:

Unapologetic IPA from Stone Brewery. After a swim on Friday night I met my friend Robyn at N.W.I.P.A in SE Portland. It’s a beer bar/store that carries mainly IPA’s (my favorite). It was a good beer, of course it did not compare to my beloved Boneyard…I love this beer bar but it was insanely hot and stuffy in there. They did NOT have AC. I probably sweated out the beer! I left with a large bottle of Firestone Union Jack IPA and a bottle of Burnside Brewing Sweet Heat, for later.

Then Saturday morning I woke up to have my ass kicked at the Warrior Room Boot Camp:

I’ve been trying to hit a Boot Camp class for awhile now and one was cancelled and then I had to cancel one that I had signed up for. So I finally made it. It was an exceptionally hot morning and the sun was beating down on us the whole time. There were some guys practicing soccer on the other end of the field and there were some older people walking around the track (and watching us with horrified expressions).

We met at the Warrior Room, got our kettle bells and a plate and then walked a few blocks to the nearby school football field and track. We did a warm-up of jumping jacks and squats and then ran once around the track.

Time to start the workout. We did a LOT of sprinting. I’m not really a sprinter. I’m a slow runner but I recognize that sprinting is beneficial (and burns more calories). I was feeling a little rusty as we did sprints from the goal line to the 25 yard line and then back. Then we did walking lunges holding the plate (15 pounds) to the 20 yard line where we left it. This was the hard part. We did burpees with the plate weights. So you go down, do a pushup, jump up with the plate and then do it all over again. We did sets of 5 of this, then sprinted back to the goal line, then back to the 20 yard line for more burpees. Yikes. This was HARD.

Time for some kettle bell work. We did alternating single arm swings, then squats, then kneeling presses. Then more sprinting. Then back to the kettle bells. Two kettle bell swing, the high pull and more squats. It was SO HOT out. I brought some Gatorade and a bottle of water and was taking a lot of drinking breaks. My heart rate gets pretty high when I do kettle bell work in the air conditioned gym…outside in the stifling heat? My heart rate was insanely (too) high. I had to take more breaks than normal.

We bent over and pushed the plate weights from the 20 yard line back to the goal line (that was difficult) and then we did a sprint/pushup combo. As a group we sprinted from one end of the track to the corner, all got into plank position in a circle with our heads in the middle and did a “waterfall” push-up. Person 1 does a pushup, then the next person, and so on. We did 3 rounds of that, jumped up and sprinted to the next corner, did it again, then ran to the next corner, and so on.

We ended with some more sprints then abs. I was totally cooked by this point. I wore sunscreen and I took a lot of water breaks, but I was so hot and felt like I was just burning up. It took awhile to cool down, too. My heart rate had been way too high during the class as well.

Nice calorie burn, though! I felt like I was going to die at the end…Would I do Boot Camp again? Maybe. If it wasn’t 80-90 degrees. I absolutely loved that it was outside in the fresh air and sunshine, I loved that it was a bunch of new stuff to shake things up. I did NOT love how high my heart rate got and how hot I felt. When I got home I took a very long cold shower.

Then it was off to Papa Haydn’s for lunch. Michael treated me to a lunch date and we sat outside on their shaded patio that thankfully had “ceiling” fans. It was nice and cool and just the right temperature. Michael ordered the fried chicken sandwich and I got a Cobb salad. I had a bite of Michael’s sandwich and it was just ok. The fries were fantastic, though.

My salad was great! I rarely get Cobb salad and I should get it more often. This one had a really delicious, creamy garlic dressing and all the usuals: avocado, bacon, Gorgonzola cheese, tomato, a hard boiled egg and turkey. The salad was so filling! We got two slices of cake to go to test for the wedding.

Later that evening, Michael’s mom and stepdad came over for dinner. We made prime rib and a tomato, cucumber and mozzarella salad and sat outside on the deck while we ate and drank a very wonderful bottle of Gnarly Head Pinot Noir–it was so smooth and creamy, mild in flavor and just perfect. It went well with the steaks. But before dinner, Michael’s mom had brought over a few different bottles of wine to test for the wedding. They are graciously getting the wine for the wedding and we’ve got a healthy mixture of different varieties, more red than white, but there’s some good Pinot Gris (which I like) that they got, too.

I’m not a huge chardonnay fan but this one she got was pretty good. The other? Not so much. We all made a “no way” face when we took the first taste.

For dessert we brought out the Papa Haydn’s cake. The first one was a slice of their German Chocolate Cake. The second was their Velvet Gianduja–chocolate truffle cake with hazelnut milk chocolate mousse, almond joconde and chocolate ganache.

So I put out the two slices on different plates. Michael and his mom started with the Velvet granache hazelnut slice and Michael’s stepdad and I shared the German chocolate and then we switched. Of course Michael preferred the velvet cake and I liked the German Chocolate. I just felt like it was more “cake” and not as much of a torte…the texture was more cheesecake-like and I thought that would be difficult for us to cut and feed each other at the wedding. While I don’t think we can go wrong with either choice, I think we’re going to keep looking…

And my weekend ended with this:

Thorns game! It was the first one Michael and I had ever gone to and it was crazy and FUN. We met up with my cousin Anna, who has season tickets, and her friend.

The fans are CRAZY. 😉 And apparently you stand the entire game and sing and chant. They all knew the words. Crazy I tell you! There were 19,123 people packed in the stadium. If you were there or watched it on TV and saw these nutjobs holding a sign on the jumbotron? It was us. 🙂

Haha! It was for a scavenger hunt one of Anna’s friends was competing it. So hopefully they won something! Anyways, it was a rockin’ weekend. 🙂 And the Thorns won!