Today marked the last day of my boot camp adventures for 2012. I’ve officially completed 6 weeks of boot camp since my 2012 race season ended in October. As I confessed a few weeks ago, I used to think strength training couldn’t hold a candle to endurance running. I quickly learned that I was a complete idiot and completely wrong.

If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that being a better athlete is about being a well-rounded athlete. I am choosing strength and endurance from here on out. I don’t just want to be a fast runner, swimmer and cyclist. I want to be a strong and powerful runner, swimmer and cyclist too. Luckily, the right training regimen and workout schedule can help us achieve both.

Today’s final boot camp workout before the holidays was intense, but somehow, when you’re dressed up in Christmas attire, it doesn’t look at painful as it actually was. We were supposed to wear tacky Christmas sweaters to class (yes, it was a competition), but since I don’t own one and didn’t have time to borrow one (the queen of costumes over at Sneakers and Finger Paints would be so disappointed in me), I donned my red Team Sparkle skirt and a green running top for my hour of torture.

We started with 10 non-stop minutes of sweat:

• 1 minute of push-ups
• 2 minutes of sit-ups
• 3 minutes of squats
• 4 minutes of burpees

I got in 208 total reps during these 10 minutes.

Then we did this …

Thankfully we acted out the 12 days of Christmas torture in groups of 3, so we split the total reps by 3 (i.e. If an exercise called for 75 reps, we each did 25). The math was the hardest part. *wink*

Since this was my first complete camp, I had to go through the FitWit ritual of being completely embarrassed by running through all my fellow campers. But I got a shirt! That’s why all of us runners and athletes do things, right? For the free shirt!

Although I’ll be boot camping it in January and February, I’ll be turning my attention to preparing for the Hot Chocolate 15K (that’s 9 miles and about 300 yards) in Atlanta in January. I know you all are probably thrilled to hear I’ll be talking more about running again! I’ve got a great list of races for 2013 already in the works (teaser)! All of my cross-training activities have sidetracked me a bit from running, but I’m getting back to basics this weekend. Maybe I’ll even run in my festive Christmas outfit. Happy holiday running everyone!

Do you ever wear costumes to run or workout? If so, what was your favorite? If not, how come?