A Rudi Awakening
1449 hours ago
Boot Camp vs Media Planner
6am is an ungodly time to greet the day, but I did. This morning I had motivation; a 6′, 250 pound motivation, Rudi, Flip’s newly hired personal trainer.
Every Monday and Wednesday Rudi holds a workout session on the beach, pleasantly referred to as “Boot Camp.” Those who dared to participate met on Kite Beach at half past 6 in the morning. Today was the first session.
I was curious about what our introduction to Boot Camp would be like. I began observing Rudi as Mo, Iyad, and myself stretched along the beach blissfully ignorant to what was about to come next. Rudi began laying out tiny cones that dwarfed in his massive hands. Spacing them on the beach he glances up, seeing my curious face and asks with a smile, “Ever hear of suicides?”
To those of you who do not know what suicides are, well, its name is an accurate description of what you do to yourself. It consists of sprinting from point A to B to A to C to A to D. Even the Geneva Convention would recognize this as cruel and unusual.
My legs were already burning from the first interval when a familiar face comes strolling along the beach. “Morgen!” Larsson grins as he makes his way towards the group. Our moment of greeting the Swede quickly turn to menacing glares and hisses as Rudi congratulated us with an extra interval for Larsson’s tardiness. “If one person is late, everyone suffers.” (I’m pretty sure Rudi learned that from Martin Diessner’s Time Sheet punishment threats.) If these suicides didn’t kill Larsson, Lord knows I will.
My thirst for vengeance soon turned to complete exhaustion as for rest of the hour was an arduous stream of suicides combined with head-to-toe resistance training using rubber bands that looked like blown tire pieces Rudi picked up off of SZR. Sweaty sand made its way in my hair, nails, mouth, and down my shorts from throwing myself onto the ground for planks, crunches, and push-ups.
Gasping for breath and waiting for death’s sweet embrace we managed to grunt out our regrets:
“I wish I didn’t have that Sheesha last night!”
“Why did we eat Twix for breakfast, Mo?!?”
“I can feel those chilies I ate for dinner last night!.”
“WHERE is Varun and Humza!?!”
On our last interval I found the last bit of strength in my legs and sprint back to the starting line. My motivation wasn’t to beat these guys. It wasn’t because I wanted to push myself a bit more with the little time I had left. It was only because I wanted to get it over with. Quickly.
The training was over. “Anyone want to go swimming?” a half naked and annoyingly enthusiastic Larsson asks as he runs passed us heading to the water. His ability to be only rejuvenated by Boot Camp, undoubtedly came from his extra 10 minutes of sleep.
With sand engulfing my entire body I sat on the beach, out of breath, exhausted, but feeling great. As we all left the beach we shook Rudi’s hand, looked him in the eye and thanked him for the challenge. 0730 and the sun was just sitting behind the Sheik Zayed Road skyline. I was able to reflect on this morning: I was proud. We all were.
comments
Yousef Tuqan
March 17th, 2008 at 11:51 amWell done guys - I’ll join you in a week!
Iyad Tibi
March 17th, 2008 at 12:21 pmThis reminds me of the military training that i used to attend back in college days!
I learned my lesson for sure that morning! Twix NO MORE!!! which equally means DON’T listen to Moe ever
Rudi
March 17th, 2008 at 2:14 pmClassic session!
but Larsson’s funky retro joggers just threw me off a bit!….only justifiable if they’d make you run faster!….LOADS FASTER!