The Y in YMCA stands for Yowww!

Yesterday was the revenge of the trainer. Our trainer Carlos, affectionately known as the torturer, came up with a workout that made all of us in the weight loss team regret that we'd ever heard of hamburgers or of a life before healthy eating.

The three of us in the team that showed up to the 2nd workout were all late. Probably a mistake. Carlos looked at us with a smile, sweat gleaming off his shaved head.

"Let's get started."

He cut short the warm ups and led us outside behind the building to a long concrete fence that looked like the setting for a rifle execution. Carlos' smile grew wider as he explained that we were to do wind sprints.

A wind sprint is the YMCA's answer to waterboarding. You run as hard as you can for 5 yards, touch the floor and run back to your starting point, touch the floor and continue the process for ten yards, fifteen yards, twenty yards and twenty five yards until you drop. When I was in the boxing club, wind sprints were relatively easy- at a hundred pounds lighter, I moved through them like greased lightning. Now, the only thing greased about me was the breakfast sitting in my belly.

I stumbled through the first five yards, staggered through the next ten yards and somehow dragged myself through fifteen yards. I don't know how I made it to twenty and twenty five yards. By the time we were done, I was ready to fall over (maybe into a nice sofa). However, Carlos took us straight into squats, kettle bell exercises and a myriad of other exertions.

All in all it was sheer torture for legs that already have a tough enough time carrying me around. By the middle of the workout, we were all exhausted. By the end of the workout, we were beyond exhausted.

But, strangely enough, I awoke the next morning feeling strangely refreshed and full of energy. It made me think that there might be something to this exercise racket.