The Marine Captain's Cone

Most of this month I have devoted to recovering from the marathon.  I think I am as recovered as possible and ready to start doing more tempo runs.  I am also ready to get back on the track and increase my long runs.

I am running the Charleston Turkey Day 5k in the morning.  This will be the first 5k I have run in a while.  Not sure what kind of time I will run, but it should be fun.  Here is a list of my last few days before the race.  

November 18 - Ran 6 miles (9:42, 7:41, 9:35, 9:37, 9:30, 10:02 )
November 19 - Boot Camp
November 20 - Ran 6 miles (9:10, 7:47, 8:59, 9:19, 9:05, 9:03, 9:08)
November 21 - Ran 8 miles (10:24, 9:38, 9:11, 9:50, 9:50, 9:23, 9:25, 9:30)
November 22 - Rest
November 23 - Boot Camp
November 24 - Boot Camp
November 25 - Rest

On the 24th I went to Boot Camp and there was a Marine Captain that came out to lead our workout for the morning.  He was pretty intense when he walked in.  He was holding a traffic cone in one hand and yelled at all of us, "This is my cone, you will not touch my cone unless I tell you to touch my cone!".  He then walked across the gym and placed the traffic cone in the corner.  We of course yell, "Yes Sir!".

There were about one hundred grown men and women standing there with confused looks on their faces (including me).  We had already stretched and warmed up so he went right into his workout (mainly core building for an hour).  As he walked around the gym he started pointing people out, "You call that a plank? Go touch my cone!!!".  "Get your butt out of the air!  Go touch my cone!!!".  The person would have to jump up, run to the cone and touch it.

You can imagine that we were all doing our best to keep a straight face.  My stomach was already hurting from all the abdominal exercises, but now I was really hurting every time he would yell at someone to go touch his cone.  This went on for the whole hour.

I thought the workout was a little easy while I was doing it, but this morning I could feel it.  The Marine Captain never cracked a smile during the workout.  I have no idea how he did it, but it sure made for a fun workout.