Whilst drinking black coffee and demolishing slices of toast smothered in peanut butter and jam, I started to wonder what my day would hold for me…
I’d carefully packed a bag with a change of clothing, clean trainers, lunch, snacks, several bottles of water, chargers and gloves. I’m not yet a master of ‘travelling light’ yet all of the above were used.
We started at a local park (this park was a new discovery for me) and met our group for some of the toughest trail running I’d experienced. We started with a gentle run to warm up and moved into a small area with several steep, muddy sections and continued to lap a route which involved uphill sprints (to make it up the hill without crawling), careful foot placement and a lot of bravery, from my part.
I was the slowest, whilst at first, this was hard to deal with, I soon settled into a happy pace and covered the trails in a way that made me feel comfortable. I was running down the sort of terrain that would normally make me very nervous, the most uplifting part was coming out of my comfort zone. We continued our training and my confidence gradually increased, I was delighted with my achievement and was complimented on my consistent pace. Beaming with sweat and happy vibes from spending time in the company of great people and following some fantastic female runners, I changed into dry clothing and we headed for coffee.
Once Lorraine and I were suitably caffeinated, and slightly more fragrant we drove across to Market Harborough for Spartan Race Training. We arrived and joined the queue for our t-shirts and then waited with the crowd for the event to start. Before I knew it, we were on the move again with our ‘warm up’ workout and a short gentle run.
Then it hit me, I was in an unused sheep shed, slightly worn out from running, and now I’m doing press ups? Burpees, monkey hugs, squats and backwards lunges…covered in, this seasons accessory, hay. With delicate splashes of mud..
I’ve previously stated that I don’t mind burpees, I’ve changed my mind. I’m allowed to change my mind, I feel that I need to strongly withdraw that comment.
5 minutes of continuous burpees with press-ups, I started to question why we considered this a good idea? We took a few water breaks and continued the workout before, you guessed it, heading for a lovely trail run…
As we slowly eased into a run my legs felt like led, as the terrain became steeper I had no choice but apologise to Lorraine and walk short sections. A great aspect of the event is the fact runners of every pace were catered for, which means no one was left behind or left waiting a long time for others to finish. I’d love to say I enjoyed every moment of the run, but it was tough. From a positive point of view, I was thankful for the company and the fact it was good endurance training.
After the run it was ‘car picnic time‘, for a much-needed rest and refuel break, feeling more energised we returned to the training area. At this point, it was rope climbs, wall climbs, tyre flips, spear throwing and so on. I’d never thrown a spear into a hay bale before or attempted to flip a tyre, despite running with a tyre in a previous race, first time for everything!
Overall during the day we covered around 10miles, completed goodness knows how many burpees and push ups, burnt thousands of calories, devoured round 6 energy bars, had a few clothing changes and not enough coffee. Whilst I’m on statistics, we also complained we were cold several times, questioned our sanity several times and shouted ‘Arooooo’ more than once.
Spartan hosted this training session for free, which I personally think is fantastic, the tickets were limited but it was a great opportunity to workout and have a taster of the event. Another thank you goes to Tough Running for kindly hosting the run and Lorraine for organising the event.
What races do you have coming up?
Katie
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