Mine was nice and mellow, save for a few ass-kicking sessions that I decided would be “fun” at the time! Exhibit A: Fitness on the Rocks!
This was the second year that this event has occurred at Red Rocks, and since I missed it last year, I decided it was a must-do this summer. The entire event, largely sponsored by Complete Nutrition, consisted of a morning full of different workouts at Red Rocks amphitheater. Participants were able to sign up for their preferred classes ahead of time, and some of them included Zumba, Yoga, Turbo Kickboxing, and two separate boot camps. Since I am trying to grow some muscles, Cindy and I decided that boot camp was the way to do it!
Even better? A bunch of other local bloggers decided the same and I finally got to put some faces to names!
(Not these girls though- I already knew them!)
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| Me, Lauren, Lynne, and Heidi |
(And yes, this is the same Heidi that braved La Plata peak with me on both our failed attempt and our successful summit. Apparently she is a glutton for punishment, no?!)
Anyway, Cindy and I had signed up for the 10am boot camp so we decided to get to Red Rocks at 9am to get our pre-registered wrist band and check things out. However, parking was a bit of a nightmare so that didn’t quite happen! We were routed to the furthest parking lot, and then continued to be treated like lemmings as officials guided us around the entire outside of the amphitheater to the single entrance that was furthest away from where they had made us park. Make sense? In short, they made us park as far south as possible and made us enter Red Rocks at the northern-most point. Normally, I’m all about a trek but we were running late and this little jaunt really threw us behind schedule!
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| Photo Cred to Lauren |
Yes, to hang out with this blogging group, you must dress like a Skittle. Sorry, those are the rules!
Because of this chaos (I imagine), the boot camp ended up not starting till 10:30-10:40ish. This was nice because it accommodated everyone that had parking issues, but it was not so great because of the sun. Temps were expected to hit 100 so at this point, we were sizzling like fried bacon on a skillet! Luckily, I had about a gallon of SPF on my body, so I didn’t get burned at all..but I sure felt the heat!
The boot camp itself was awesome. They had various trainers from different gyms around the Denver Metro area. Each trainer took a portion of the boot camp and led it in a manner that would be similar to his gym’s style. Some were better than others, but all seemed to agree on two fitness staples: squats and pushups! Good hell, I have never done so many of either in my life! It takes a lot for me to get sore muscles, especially in the legs, and my butt was definitely a bit painful yesterday!
My fave part, per usual, was the last 12 minutes when Joe Hendricks took his turn. If you have read my blog for a long time, you may remember Joe from It Burns Joe Fitness. Joe puts on free Red Rocks workouts every Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday night for anyone that wants to show up. They are each 3 hours and literally, you will never work so hard as you do with Joe! I spent a summer going to these workouts, and it was the first time in my life that I had muscles! (I even ended up in one of his promo YouTube videos that is circling the web somewhere!) The only tricky part this past weekend was that Joe was last, like I mentioned, and his workouts are ALWAYS the hardest of any group. One armed spider pushups after 75 minutes of squats and incline pushups?! I don’t think so, Joe!
After we finished, Cindy and I bolted out of the amphitheater to hunt down the dozens of food trucks that the website had previously advertised. I was starving! Sadly, some misinformation had been thrown out because there was not a single food truck in sight! If it wasn’t for the sample of Sabra hummus and bag of chips that I received from a vendor, I may have curled up and died from hunger right then and there! 🙂
In short, Fitness on the Rocks was a pretty sweet event and I enjoyed checking it out. After all, you can never go wrong with Red Rocks, right? I think if they can organize the parking situation, find me some food, and maybe move it to the fall when we have some cooler temps, I would give it 5 million thumbs up!
PS I have some super exciting news coming up tomorrow– stay tuned!
22 Comments
LOl at the skittle comment 😉
I would LOVE to have something like this where I live! But I guess it’d be built around corn instead of mountains haha
This looks totally awesome.
That looks soooo awesome!!! Great scenery and an awesome workout…doesn’t get any better than that! 🙂
Looks like such a cool event! I need to check into similar ones here in my area
I love how colorful we all were! It was good to finally meet you, too! I ended up bolting out about 5-10 minutes into Joe’s workout since Diana had been waiting for me forever since turbo kick started on time. It’s ok though, I was barely able to do any of his stuff. Oh, and I agree with you on the booty burn! I’ve done a ton of squats and stuff before, and my butt has never burned as much as it did yesterday.
It was nice to finally meet you, too!
That looks like fun! We don’t have anything quite like that where I live, but there are several bootcamps that go on in the park near my apartment. I always see them during my morning runs. We also have several running groups throughout the city…I just wish they met in the mornings because by 7 p.m., I’m whooped!
Ugh, I don’t blame you! I struggle whenever I do an afternoon/evening workout…my body just doesn’t want to move!
Looks like so much fun an what a view. That is awesome you got to meet some local bloggers. Skittle comment made me laugh:).
We dont have anything like that.. looks amazing!
Oh my dear Lord, did you run the stairs at Red Rocks!?!?!
I hate parking there. I can never get it right if I am in a lot on on a side of the road, and get a workout just trying to get to the right side. Chances are good whichever area I park in I am sitting on the other side of the amphitheater. I can’t even imagine the folks that live really close to there, what they have to do trying to get in and out. However the vodka lemonade vendor at the top usually make it all better:) Probably not so much at a boot camp though!
They didn’t include running the stairs till the very end when they had some impressive man-beast do a little demo. But, I have run them in the past multiple times– it’s a workout!!
so freaking fun. i jealous. I LOVE LOVE LOVE red rocks. when I used to visit when I was younger I wasnt even a runner yet and would day dream about running up and down those steps. (although to be honest I think i would fall flat on my face and break my nose)
That sounds intense. What a fun event! I’m cracking up at your Skittles comment, it’s so true!
Wow – I am a little bummed that I passed on this event this year. I knew I needed a relaxing morning, but the recaps are really making me jealous. I’ll add this to my must-do list for next year! 🙂
Definitely, we missed ya!
My gym coordiantes mass outdoor workout sessions every now and then….right now they are doing some sort of Olympic team thing, but my schedule is always too jacked to participate.
That workout sounds brutal!!! Running those bleachers are hard enough!
Oh my gosh. I wish they did stuff like that near here. Looks amazing!
So glad I finally got to meet you (my 14er idol!!)! Next time we need to get together in an environment where we don’t have to SCREAM to hear each other- but the bootcamp WAS awesome. Now I’m a little bummed that we left a few minutes early (since you said that was the best part)- I was already just burnt to a crisp and needed some cold water. But man, it was such an awesome experience- I hope to be out there again for it next year!!
Yeah, I should learn…if Heather thinks its a good idea I’ll probably hurt for 3 days afterward!
And I’m with you on all the pros/cons of the event – I emailed them about it hoping to get a response before I posted but haven’t heard anything yet, three days later. Mostly I’m just pissed about the food trucks. I take food seriously.
Also, the section with Joe terrified me. Does he always go that fast? I can’t do three hours of that…I’ll die.
That sounds freaking awesome, and you are a rockstar for doing it in that heat. I love bootcamp style workouts, although my biggest one was like 15 people. So cool!
I’m sooo jealous! We usually go out there once a year and I ALWAYS go to Red Rocks just to run the stairs. It’s seriously a killer workout!