Repetition is his reputation

I remember when Rachel was going through her first boot camp, she told me a story about how one morning John just made them hold the plank position the entire hour. Today I think I experienced a little of that. This morning I arrived at 4:45 am and we joined the 4 am class' workout already in progress. They were all laying on benches with red balls tied to their ankles doing leg lifts. The 5 am class started in and we did about 300 before the 4 am class ended. The 4 am class filed out and those of us who'd come early just kept going as the rest of our class came in and got settled. We just kept going, over and over and over again. We'd get to 1000 and then start over. I estimate we did over 3000 leg lifts. It was brutal, but I remembered what Rachel had said about that day she'd experienced. It's an hour of class, after that hour you'll get to go home he can't keep you there. So I occasionally (obsessively) looked at the clock knowing that at 6 am I would be released from this repeating hell. Finally we got to get some water and take off the "balls of fire". The next exercise was running in place with our hands on the bench in order to "try out our new legs". Needless to say it was painful and yet I knew I could do it because at that point there was only 15 minutes left of class and I know I can do anything for 15 minutes. We got a short lesson for the last few minutes of class where John admitted he was trying to kill us. He meant the old us, because in order to make progress you must let go (kill) the old habits, the old attitudes, and the old self. I've seen progress, lots of it in fact, so that makes letting go easier because I can see the light. I see the future me and I want to get there. I know it won't be easy and I'll probably have more days like this one before it arrives, but it will be worth it.