Sunday in the Park

Instead of taking my usual long Sunday run, I decided to head over to Elver Park to work on some dry-land conditioning with the Mad Norski Nordic ski club. For the month of November they are offering Sunday morning 90 minute hill and endurance training sessions at Elver's ski hill. I've been avoiding these workouts for a variety of reasons: not wanting to give up my long Sunday run, not wanting to leave Ezra at home, and probably just a little afraid to test myself.

But after two weeks of fear and trepidation, I finally made my way over to train with the fit folks. It was time to find our what kind of progress I had really made. It turned out to be a great idea, as this was an excellent 90 minute test of my endurance. We began with an easy warm-up, just running slowly and going through a series of quick plyometric like exercises. After loosening up we headed over to the hills. We split into two groups, and then made our way up and over a short and intense hill circuit...twice. These are hills I have run many times; however, on this day I was running with some very fit people, and I found myself pushing hard just to stay caught up. Overall though I was pretty happy with the results as I was able to stay in touch with the group, and even stay in front of a handful of runners throughout the four hills.

After the hill session we moved over to the shelter where our instructor put us through a series of "boot camp" like exercises. The idea behind boot camp is to use your own body weight, as well as some occasional dumbbells to push the limits of one's body. We slid and jumped upwards; we exploded from a squatting position and threw dumbbells as far as we could; we sat on a wall and passed weights back and forth to each other, and then lastly we completed some type of weird quick, but hard, reflex exercise. After these exercises we moved over to the hill where we were put through a series of short sprints up the hill. We started at :30, worked our way down to :10, and then back up to :30. Then just to add more misery to the morning, he had us carry a dumbbell as far up the hill as we could in :20. Then after setting it down he had us run past the dumbbell in :18.

The last part of the morning was spent working on our core strength. It was painfully awful. When the core exercises ended I collapsed to the ground, dripping with sweat, and gasping for my strength. I spent the rest of the day plastered to my couch, massaging my tight muscles. Yesterday throughout the school day my body got progressively more sore.  All day my body screamed with pain and soreness. Last night I took two Advil's and a hot bath, and yet still I complained my way around the house...truly acting like an old and broken down man. Yet still, even with all the misery and pain I put my body through, I am certain that I will return again next week to Mad Norski's Sunday in the Park.