DAY 1 FAT ATTACK BOOT CAMP IN EAST GRINSTEAD
My friend and I set off from London about ten. After grabbing some supplies out of Sainsbury’s and a quick loo break we arrived on time for 12.
We were met by Vanessa the organizer for the weekend. We tootled to the base station where our measurements were taken so that they could be compared at the end of the weekend – see my rant on page 1 and 10 of this review. It was doing this process that I mentioned I was partially sighted, which I may add was in the forms we were obligated to send them in the previous week. She showed us where the temporary loos were (rooms would not be available until 6 that evening. They were disgusting but were there mainly for campers. We were just using them until the loos were available at our accommodation.
While she was dealing with other guests we ate our packed lunch, There were two other instructors at the camp called Jamie and the other Ahmed, both really nice guys.
The afternoon started with some warm-up exercise, jumping on the spot, stretching etc. and then we were ‘mobilised’ for our an ‘up to’ 10k run! 5 laps = 10k.
Ahmed took the lead on this one with Jamie the little tinker saying he was going to bring up the rear for the slower of us. All I can say is don’t believe everything they tell you! I tried to keep up to start with, jogging along, being led down a grassy track we had to stop because I had a small asthma attack. By the time I calmed down enough to carry on, the others were coming back down the track so we just rejoined them.
We followed them again until I had another asthma attack and had to stop. Weirdly ten minutes later, they were coming back our way so we tagged on behind again. After another ten minutes we lost them again and we were totally lost. There seemed to be tracks branching of tracks and even my friend with the amazing sense of direction didn’t have a clue where we were going. After a few minutes a couple of runners passed us and we followed them. Each time we lost them another pair would go passed us until we reached the pit stop where our water bottles were stored.
The moral of this tale is when your instructor gets lost leading you around the orienting lap then there is no hope!
Because I was so drained for the asthma attacks I was going to just wait at the pit stop but Vanessa persuaded me to walk it. Turns out the route was, go straight until your reach a dead-end and turn right. Go straight and then turn right. Then carry on until you get to the picnic tables. It was that easy! (I still got lost a couple of times though) 😉