Training VIII

Absolutely murderous session tonight!

It was hot, well hot for where we live, virtually no breeze and Chuckle Elder decided we needed a nice High Intensity session. This was the one that broke Fat Lad when I was still nursing my swollen bits from the first session. This was the one that had him gasping for breath and bent double ... now it was my turn.

We started from corner 1 and ran at pace to the centre mark then turned right and jogged to the other corner, effectively running a ^ shape on the field. At corner 2, it was time for 5 press-ups before another run at pace to the centre mark followed by another turn right and jog to the other corner, running a < shape on the field. At corner 3, it was time for 5 burpees which are basically squat thrusts but you stand up straight in between each one. Now having had hamstring trouble I thought it was a bit too risky to try the squat part, also the down and up might be too much so I dropped to my back and did 5 sit-ups.

This is when it started to hurt as we ran to the centre mark, turned right and jogged to corner 4, so doing another ^ shape and there we did 5 standing squats before running back to the centre mark, turning right and jogging it in to corner 1 to finish. There we got 1-2 minutes recovery time before doing it all again. We did four circuits in total before taking a 5-6 minute rest then doing another 4 circuits.

When we started Chuckle Elder was running with Zico who was still struggling with sore hamtrings from last week's sessions. They were trying to get around in 3 minutes and then shortened their time to 2m25s. It became too much for Zico on the very last circuit and she had to stop at corner 3 as her hamstring in her right leg was giving her too much pain. CE finished on a time of 1m55s!!!

Fat Lad, Titfer and I got round our first circuit at 3m15s which was slower than CE and Fat Lad had done the first time they did this three weeks ago, so we lifted the pace. On the next one we measured at 3m1s. We then got it down to 2m50s for a couple which was an achievement. Fat Lad demanded we really push it for the last circuit and CE set a target of 2m45s.

My legs were shot by the time I was heading into corner 4 and I told Fat Lad and Titfer to keep going. I was absolutely out on my feet as I left corner 4 heading for the centre mark but somehow I kept going. Fat Lad managed 2m25s with Titfer not far behind. When I stopped I looked at my watch I found I had hit the 2m45s bang on. I was dead ... but oh so happy. Zico looked like she wanted to be dead because of pain of the strained hamstring. She got plenty of advice on looking after it and then we all did the warm down/stretches before heading home. I burned 900 calories with an average heart rate of 78% and a max of 90%. I've reverted back to 186 as my max on CE's advice. He thinks the 196 was a blip as it's only 4 behind him!