The “Storm of the Century” was looming, threatening to block the roads that we run or walk, shutter the Y — a center of village-life and a keystone to our healthy lifestyle —as well the parks and beach that Boot Camp calls home base.

 

By Lee Sandford

 

The “Storm of the Century” was looming, threatening to block the roads that we run or walk, shutter the Y — a center of village-life and a keystone to our healthy lifestyle —as well the parks and beach that Boot Camp calls home base.

 

I felt slightly unlucky. My cabin fever set in just before the storm, having been sick Saturday and Sunday. So on Monday, I needed fresh air and time out of the house. I wasn’t up to a run yet, so I went for a long walk, literally feeling and seeing the storm brewing around me. One of my stops was the Rye High track. I looked at it in the first high tide of that day and feared that it would not fare well at the next one. Feeling a little better, I ran the bleachers a few times, added some tricep dips and pushups, and then headed home and waited for the power to go out, which it did at 3 p.m. — for 11 days.

 

Tuesday morning, and like much of Rye, I was up bright and early and went on another long walk, sadly looking at the damage done to homes and wondering how on Earth this would ever be cleaned up for power to be restored in the next couple of days. (Oh the naivety!) Later in the day, still trying to stay out of the house, I bumped into a Boot Camper out on a run-for-sanity and I joined her for a mile or so. We talked about how much better we felt to be out and sweating and how great it would be to have Boot Camp. And the sooner the better! Another desperate email from two Boot Campers later that night — they were sharing a bottle of wine by candlelight — made me determined to figure something out.

 

So I thought of my workout the day before at the high school track. Without power, my address book was inaccessible. So I retrieved my paper files and put together an extensive workout email list so I could spread the word about a free Boot Camp at the track the following morning, children included. A group of nearly 30 moms and kids showed up, bedraggled with war stories and whatever news they heard from others far worse-off than us.

 

As we ran stairs, did push-ups, star-jumps, and tricep dips, with children cheering their parents, the gradual change in mood throughout the 45 minutes was palpable. There was a great sense of relief that we were back together working out, even though life was far from normal.

 

We returned to Boot Camp daily. Those with power offered laundry services, heat, food, and the all-important hair dryer socket to those without (thank you Caren, Ellen, Ann, Tomoko and anyone else I’ve forgotten who hosted my hair-drying stops!) As we now know, we were in for the long-haul regarding electricity, but in the big picture, we were very lucky.

 

Everyone told me Boot Camp — the camaraderie and the workouts — were a major factor in maintaining sanity. Boot Campers and so many others I found walking and running around town didn’t use Hurricane Sandy as an excuse not to exercise, in fact it was the very reason that we HAD to exercise!

 

For a great workout at the track, after a warm-up and dynamic stretch try the following:

 

1) Run the stairs to the top

2) Side-squat down the “seats”

3) On the bottom step do 20 tricep dips

 

Repeat steps 1 & 2, each time but replace the tricep dips with the following drills at the bottom step:

 

Unilateral lunge left (back toe on the step, most of your weight on the front leg)

Unilateral lunge right

Push-ups

Rockette kicks left (top leg stays on the step, bottom leg kicks and taps)

Rockette kicks right

Plank

Squats (squat low until the backs of your legs touch the step, then push up through the heels)