Velocity Sports Performance: Day One

I think I'm going to vomit.

I had to peel off my sweatshirt after ten minutes of dynamic stretching and warmups. The long sleeve thermal shirt bit the dust around the twenty minute mark, which was also when I was ready to quit. "All right, now we're going to do some of the more advanced warm ups," Abby Jorgensen said. Jorgensen pulled morning duty this week, so she is putting Amanda and I and one other Velocity student through our paces at the crack of dawn. We lunge, we skip, we squat, we leap, we run, and then we change directions and do it again.

Seconds tick by as my legs burn and my stomach turns. My hips and knees stop wanting to flex and I have to concentrate on moving when all I want to do is sit down. My ego is taking a beating. I'm no fighter, I'm not even a mediocre athlete. I'm just another overweight, out of shape wannabe gasping for breath during advanced WARM UPS.

Sixty minutes into my training at Velocity, I am faced with the reality that I am much further away from being ready to fight than I thought I was. If physical conditioning has a rock bottom, I may have hit it this morning. Watch out when I am on my way up.