Monday, September 19, 2005

Bootcamp

So, I rocked up this morning feeling reasonable - the inside of my thighs was a little sore (in a good way) from doing (what is still, for me) many kms in the space of two days. Although, I think that if I hadn't sprinted the last 1.5km yesterday I wouldn't be sore today - I've been thinking more about my form lately, and when I sprint I run really differently - I drive with my legs a lot more and my stride gets longer. I don't know if that's something I should actually be doing during slow runs too... it just feels more natural to do it when I want to go quicker!

Bootcamp this morning involved assault course again. 6.17, dammit! By the time I got to the last sprint, I realised I really was a bit fatigued from the last couple of days. Tomorrow I think I'll have a rest day and try and blitz it on wednesday. I'm also going to try and make it back to run club that evening, so it should be a full on day!

After the assault course, we did hill runs. They actually made people vomit today from the effort. Thankfully, not me. The hill runs were in the landscaped gardens just behind the park - probably only 40m or so actual distance, but pretty steep. They were however graduated with two 5m flat sections equally spaced - so it was like running three stages. Not that we got to rest between each part of the hill - they made us sprint each section flat out, then do ten squat jumps on each flat...

Oh my gods - if you ever wanted to strengthen (read KILL) your thigh muscles, that's the way to do it. It was brutal and everyone just fell over onto the grass at the top of each set. Didn't even have the strength to remain standing. We did that and variations of it for about 30 minutes. By the end of it though, I'm delighted to say endurance won out and I beat the quick blokes on the very last set. *snorks* not that it's much of a victory - I spent most of the session trailing behind them with legs like concrete! It was one of those exercises that absolutely kills but really works (I don't think I'll be able to walk tomorrow!) as such, I'm thinking I may encorporate it somehow into my training. That sort of strength work has to benefit running, surely.

3 comments:

Tesso said...

Hill reps are great for you!

Its my favourite Pat session when we go into the Botanical Gardens and do 15 to 20 minutes or more continual hill work on the grass. Mind you, at the time .....

Cirque said...

woohoo - well done on beating the blokes. The last set is really the only one that matters anyway :)

Tamyka Bell said...

Don't listen to Tesso, she's being evil! (Okay, it's all true, but just running up that hill once hurt me!)