GUY HENDERSON: Boot Camp… just watching it rain

By Herald Express  |  Posted: October 31, 2013

BOOT Camp — even the name seems to indicate this was another idea destined to end in a certain amount of discomfort.

It was all the idea of the man known as Flasher, whose name crops up in this column from time to time, usually in the context of another hare-brained fitness scheme.

Flasher is the man who makes the announcements at the start of our hash runs.

Being a model of anarcho-syndicalism like the commune in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, we have no leaders, elected or otherwise, just Flasher standing in a darkened car park dispensing information which you can use or ignore as you please.

There are no rules. That’s just the way we roll. What could possibly go wrong?

He is also the man who organises the Sunday morning Get Sweaty circuit training sessions, the occasional Beast sessions on the moors and even the odd midweek evening circuits in a church hall.

I haven’t tried the latter yet. Even I have some sense of self-preservation.

But when he sidled up to me one dark and stormy night and said ‘Boot Camp?’, my interest was piqued.

The logic was impeccable. A few tough sessions between now and Christmas to get everyone fighting fit for the festive season.

We would go into the festivities leaner, meaner and with Brownie points in the bank which should allow us to indulge a little in pies and beer.

If it went well, there would be another series immediately after New Year, to give us all the chance to work off the pies and the beer. More impeccable logic, of course.

I had agreed well before he had announced that Boot Camp would take place at 6.30am every Monday at an outdoor venue to be announced.

By the time he had given us that information I was already committed. So were Steve the Plumber and a number of other people.

The first attempt at a Boot Camp was not entirely successful. In fact it was an absolute disaster.

We duly assembled in a car park at a secret location near Paignton at a few minutes before 6.30am — just a handful of us for the first session.

We were the only people around in the pre-dawn darkness. Not even the dog-walkers had ventured out by that time.

Even the street lights were still out, just before they came back on again to help the early office workers go about their commutes.

The only problem was that the weather had not bought into the Boot Camp concept.

We sat in our cars with the wipers on intermittent, looking across from one to another.

In the street lights a great orange shower of heavy raindrops blew almost horizontally.

On the radio came news that a lorry had shed its load on the M8 near Lesmahagow and surface water was causing problems for drivers in Devon and Cornwall. How bad could that be?

Merely saying the word ‘Lesmahagow’ must surely be enough to cheer up even the most surly of truckers.

I confess my enthusiasm for going face-down in a puddle to do planks and press-ups, then rolling over to do my sit-ups, was waning swiftly.

We still sat in our cars as the minutes ticked by and the errant load was scraped up off the M8.

Eventually we braved the elements and scuttled across to pile into one car for a meeting. Did we really want to do this?

Flasher would have gone ahead, and Steve the Plumber was as gung-ho as ever.

But then a gust of wind hurled pebbles of rain across the screen and made our minds up for us.

Discretion got the better part of valour and we decided to knock it on the head and return home for tea and toast. A week later and the weather forecast was even worse.

The worst storm for decades was due to blow in overnight, and would be at its worst in the early hours of the next Boot Camp morning. This would be a real test for us.

Armaggedon duly blew through in the night. Our neighbour’s bin blew over and some garden furniture moved about a bit. A stone duck fell off our decking. Nothing else broke.

This time, because the clocks had gone back an hour, 6.30am was light in that grey, pre-dawn kind of a way.

There was still enough wind to blow the clouds across from Totnes and out over the Bay, the last few murky stragglers left behind while the rest of the big storm charged through in the early hours.

We grovelled around in the sand, trying to make sense of Flasher’s instructions.

Dog walkers stopped to see what we were up to. Their dogs looked, sniffed and barked at us.

We completed the session with sprints between lamp-posts — 20 of them. By about number six the leg muscles were screaming for mercy, but by about number nine the pain had passed like the big clouds of the night before.

Our speed increased, and we cruised through the required 20 sprints before stretching out and warming down on the beach.

By this time the sun had risen through the clump of cloud over Berry Head, and was casting its deep wintery orange across the calm waters of the Bay, where cargo ship captains were preparing to weigh anchor and resume the voyages they had interrupted for sheltering purposes.

Back in our cars we turned on the radios again. A lorry had shed its load on the M11 near Newmarket and surface water was causing problems for drivers in Devon and Cornwall again.

No change there, then. Same time next week?

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