The bar has been raised!

Structured training with the group is paying off, as we saw last night during Hell Night plus again at this morning's session. (The Westcliff stairs saw one change, and that was the addition of a long cardio run to move us from the top of the stairs to the start line at the bottom. All other exercises remained the same, and I felt great afterwards. I can definitely feel an improvement in recovery times and strength.)

It's amazing how motivating yourself to begin something is one thing, but then actually going through the motions is quite another. There are many phases to getting anything done, and I feel it particularly when doing physical training where it's out of my comfort zone. Group sessions really work for me.

• You psych yourself up to the point where you are ready to make a plan and hit a goal
• Friends get involved and it's all a bit easier, as the vision (and nerves) are shared
• First training session is planned and a date is set
• You arrive excited and amped to go
• You begin strong ... 
• Then mere moments later you begin to regret your decision to even think about starting
• Your friends feel the same and the blame game begins. "Who's stupid idea was this in the first place?" (all in jest of course)
• But that thought exists only for seconds, as nobody else is giving up just yet.
• You carry on in silence for a while as each person finds a way to muster up more courage in their own way
• You pick up energy in the knowledge that you are not alone, and the talking begins again
• Finally on completion of that first dreaded full SET, which felt like death half way through, you feel energised, immortal and ready to go
• By the end, it's all a blur and you wonder how you got through all of those SETS
• But you feel great, and the smiles all around afterwards pick you up even more
• We meet again tomorrow, and the cycle begins again!

Parkour Circuits (of death!)

Yesterday's Urbanathlon training session at Wits felt very gruelling! The plan was to do interval training, but we ended mixing it up by doing a number of small intense parkour-style training circuits.

Plank x8 repetitions
It started off with a simple jog up an embankment, arm jump to a wall, shimmy along the wall, drop and roll, turn around and wall run up that same wall, climb over it's railing on the top, jump down and tag your buddy who's been waiting in the plank position all this time.

Sprint x8 repetitions
Hard sprints up the embankment, then recovery jog back down.

Crawl x16 repetitions
Cat crawl on a ledge around a pond for half way, plank crawl a quarter of the way on the ground then recovery jog the last quarter before beginning again on the ledge in cat crawl.

This was modified as we went along. The plank crawl on the ground was eating up our forearms, so we increased the recover jog for half the circuit, and included side steps, crossover steps, backward runs, etc.

The first quarter of the cat crawl up was uphill, and the second quarter was downhill, so we changed the uphill to be similar to straight back legged bear crawls.

Quadrupedal until failure
This involved crawling on all fours down 15 stairs, then crawling backwards back up the same stairs. 5 pull ups on a tree, then repeat.

One modification was to do this with a buddy. You both crawl down at the same speed, just with opposite hands to each other on the same step. the free hand (meaning the one not holding your body up off the step), now "High Fives" (more like a "Side Five"), your buddy next to you for every step. Down AND up. (This was a killer!!)

Stairs until failure (which didn't take long after the previous quadrupedal crawl)
We found some stairs which we could climb up the back of, by pulling ourselves up onto each one just with hands. Up and down 6 stairs, then tag your buddy who's been waiting in a triceps dip position.

Needless to say, my muscles are feeling it his morning. :-)

Wits University 5km Parkour Circuit

For today's Urbanathlon "cardio" circuit workout, we headed off to Wits University and created a 5km parkour run.

To even BEGIN jotting down all the exercises and events we have included will take up way too much time and space .... and you'll be bored to death just trying to read it, not to mention the lack of understanding behind what exactly the exercises are.

Suffice to say, it included locations such as the Death Beam, Bridge Pods, Man Vag Jump(Thank Rob!), Transporter-looking-machine-thingy-ma-bob, Dusty Loo, Pillar Precision, and a ton more. (Non of which are the conventional names for any of the regular spots, plus many many more new locations which we are quite excited about! Especially the progression wall run!!!)

The circuit is just under 6km, and it took us a very easy 1:45min to complete, including warm up and cool down.

A great first time, and I cannot wait to really push it through it's paces next time around.

ps, we had a few followers trying to keep up from the start, but they had to dash of pretty early and we were left with only Germano following us doing what he could, but mostly just walking around the obstacles. At least he got to complete the 5km run. Nice one!

Mens Health Urbanathlon 2010 - Sandton

What better way to start my blogs again after a long silence (I know, I know), than to start blogging my journey to the Mens Health Urbanathlon 2010, which is to be held in Sandton on Sunday November 28th.

Today we officially kicked off the team training sessions and upped our own regular training just a notch!

Tonight's session saw us running up and down the famous Westcliff Stairs in Parktown. All 210 stairs. And not in a rhythmic-equal-distance-bounce either. The unemployed miners who built them back in 1933/4 saw it fit to have a group of 2 here, 3 there, 4 that side, 5 this side... EXCELLENT for anyone wanting to test their fitness.

Oh, and when I say "run" ... we did a bit more than just that. It went a little something like this:

1) Long-stride bounding up the stairs to the first corner
2) 10 press-ups
3) Run up to the next long'ish flat level
4) 10 partner assisted dips on the railing
5) Explosive step-ups all the way to the top
6) Sprint to the corner
7) Lunge to the next step
8) Recovery jog over the road to the next steps
9) Precision jump to each first step until failure
10) Tuck jump between each set of stairs the rest of the way
11) Take no more than a 2-breath rest
12) Quadrupedal walk down all stairs to the road
13) Recovery jog to the next stairs (as quiet as possible)
14) Turn Vaults over the hand railing (in both directions)
15) Buddy does press-ups while waiting for you to finish, then swap
16) Continue jogging back down to the first level
17) 10 Press-ups (in the same place as we did them on the way up)
18) Jog down to the road
19) Stay in plank position till the last person arrives
20) Then hold the plank for a further minute
21) Repeat steps 1 - 21

The kilometre or so run to the stairs and back were a great warm up and cool down, then winding down with a relaxing stretch session before heading home.

Tonight was an easy run where we only did 4 sets up and down the stairs as it was our first group session, and I must say .. it's looking good!!

A busy season ahead...

I've decided not to run Bushy Park Time Trial for 2 weeks and instead spend some time focussing on my other training as well as volunteering on Saturdays.

The first time I volunteered at Bushy Park I played photographer and took pictures of everyone running while last Saturday I registered names of those runners who finished onto the system. Next Saturday they have me up to be the "number checker". (I know, it sounds a bit strange but has to do with keeping synchronisation between the time keeper and the person handing out numbers so we'll see how that goes.)

Wednesday and Sundays at St Mary's Richmond Athletic Club will be my new home for athletics training where I am hoping to improve on my Javelin distance as well as pick up the pace on my shorter distance running. More on that as the season progresses.

I'm still running every Monday and Thursday at Sweatshop Teddington to keep the miles ticking over as well as trying to squeeze in Parkour training wherever possible.

Reading this post through it looks like I am tackling far to much at once, but things are not yet hectic and unmanageable. Once the athletic season kicks in it is bound to be a totally different story though.... :-)

Sprints and Strength Training

Thursday's training was a little different and involved a number of short/long sprints uphill to push endurance and build strength.

We started off from Teddington Sweatshop and ran a few km's to a school where we warmed up and started the sprints. It involved running fast (not exactly 100meter dash pace, but not slow jogging either) up a hill to a set marker and then slow pace back to recover, before reaching the bottom marker and starting the fast run uphill again.

Then after a number of these, we moved on to increase the distances of these uphill sprints a little bit more. At this point I noticed my calves starting to feel like they had done some serious work....

After 10 minutes of these we wrapped up and had a casual run back to the shop.

I've enjoyed these and it is certainly the type of training I would like to try experimenting with a little more.

No Bushy Park run on Saturday although I will be there to take pictures and volunteer if needed.

10k Race on Sunday and then depending on how I'm feeling Monday evening, I'll join up for the "easy" training run of over an hour that the Reading Marathon guys have planned....

7mile training run - Sweatshop Teddington

With the Valentine's 10k race coming up on Sunday 10th Feb, I decided to try running with the Teddington Sweatshop group to test my pace on longer distances. Most of my training to date has been my solo circuits around Teddington and I have had little to compare to apart from the weekly 5k time trials at Bushy Park on Saturdays.

The runners I ended up training with tonight turned out to be gearing up for the Reading Half Marathon and was a strong group. I was nervous and worried I'd not be able to keep up...

We started off from the Teddington Sweatshop and completed a figure 8 circuit around Teddington covering some of the areas I had trained on my own during the previous weeks, which was a relief as I knew the surfaces and where to avoid. (Training on unknown surfaces and environments can be quite tricky, and sometimes even dangerous. Make sure your first run in a new area is either with experienced runners on that road or take the first run really easy to just map the road out. You can always revisit it later and start pushing for a decent time. Safety First!)

The pace started out at around the 7:00min/mile mark, which I found very comfortable. We all were talking to each other about odds and ends and the first 5km seemed to pass quite quickly.

The second half of the circuit saw the pace pick up and I still felt OK. It was about this time I noticed my brand new funky running shoes had the laces tied up a little too tight. (Note to self, make sure they are not like that for the next run otherwise I will lose all feeling in my toes permanently...)

At the 10km mark I noticed I really had to focus on my breathing and timing. I could still talk during the run but it was not as easy as it was in the beginning. Things started to bother me and I was worried I might have to slow down a bit and let the guys go on without me... but I pushed through and soon was feeling confident as we took on the final stretch from Teddington Lock up the high street to the final stop back at Sweatshop Teddington.

Overall a GREAT run and I was very surprised to find out how far we had run. It could not have taken much more than 55min to complete although nobody held the official timing, but I go into the Sunday 10km race a lot more confident than I was before the training tonight.

The sessions at Sweatshop might become a regular for me if I can just make sure I get out of work ontime. Another note to self.... :-)