Gulp Don't Sip

We had a wonderful black labrador dog called Kumo. His brain ran something like this:

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food;

Go ski touring, fabulous, let’s go;

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food;

Go climb a mountain, awesome, I’m in;

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food;

Walk in the woods, yes, my favourite;

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food;

Lie in the sun on a winters day, don’t mind if I do;

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food;

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food;

Food, food, food, food, food, food, food, food.

My brain, which likes to gulp not sip at life, is a bit like this except it runs:

Go for a run, go for a run, go for a run, go for a run, go for a run;

Lift weights, lift weights, lift weights, lift weights, lift weights, lift weights;

Paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle, paddle;

Climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb, climb;

Rest, nah, don’t want to, run, paddle, climb, lift, run, paddle, climb, lift.

PC: DB

So, of course, as soon as we got back from Tasmania, I started training. But where to start. Strength obviously. After six weeks of endurance activities, I really need to build my strength, power and not least, muscle mass back up. That part is easy. Back into the fundamental human movements: push, pull, hinge, squat, carry with some additional core and glute training (my weak areas), but, I also wanted to get back into trail running and, in an effort to build up my legs, some hill running.

The brain that gulps not sips, starts with hill sprints and optimistically thinks, I’ll do five sets. There is actually a really good hill for this about a three kilometre walk (or jog) along a nice bush track from where I live. There is about a hundred broad steps and the hill gains 70 metres, which is a decent amount of elevation around these parts. Optimistically, I thought five repetitions sounded like a good number. Turns out 3.5 was a good number and my legs were as Elvis doing the blue suede shoes when I finished.

Next day, climbing on my home wall and an easy aerobic trail run. Why not run eight kilometres (five miles), the minimum distance for any self-respecting trail runner? Once I started that also seemed a bit daft so I settled for a Maffetone¹ approach which uses time not distance, and did just over six kilometres. On the plus side, I was able to run almost all the way at my nose breathing pace (approximately VT1) which is actually a huge leap forward for me as I usually have to walk a lot more to stay around VT1 (first ventilatory threshold). Turns out doing primarily endurance for six weeks really improves your endurance.

1The Endurance Handbook by Dr. Phillip Maffetone.