Tough Mudder on Sunrise

A friend messaged me this morning letting me know that Sunrise (a local morning news show) had a piece on Tough Mudder....

Of course, almost all of the article was lifting straight from youtube videos, so very little 'journalism' had to be done there! And I was quite disappointed (although not surprised) at the half-informed information provided.

What was more amusing was the 'Tough Mudders' in the background doing exercises... hmm... Don't know if you can call them that if they've never done one (It would have made much more sense to have talked with some of the Australians who'd done it in the US), and it makes it sound like it's some fitness trend you can join up to like any old boot camp or aerobics class. In fact, the reference to TM as a 'craze' is what I found the most laughable.

As my M said when she saw it: "How come everything has to be a 'craze'? Can't it just be people wanting to do something??"

Still, it's impressive to hear it's already got 6000 registrants for Melbourne. No wonder booking accommodation was so tough!

Call in the professionals

Just returned from our team's first session with the personal trainer... We'll be getting his help to keep us heading on the right track and building up our weaknesses between now and the TM. 

With that goal, he spent today 'testing us'. Urgh. Those words just fill me with loathing and as we walked out to the oval at lunchtime all I could see were two sets of cones, WAY too far away from each other...!!! This didn't look good...

So this was the punishment: 10 push-ups (all the way to the ground), 10 sit-ups, 10 burpees, run 600 metres. Repeat for 10 minutes. Rest for 5 minutes.

Then repeat the whole routine 2 more times.

Despite how much it sucked, it was actually a very logical setup, reflecting the TM experience. A hard session of upper body and core strength work, followed by running, leading straight into more strength work. The depressing part being that by the end of it as we were panting and glad it was over, the reality was we'd been active for only 30 minutes and 3.6kms.... I think our trainer really wanted to impress upon us the work ahead of us and it certainly worked!

Tough Mudder Phillip Island accommodation - book now!

M (my bride of 14 years) and I are planning to make the most of the trip down to Phillip Island and stay a couple of nights in some local accommodation. Partially because it's a week after our anniversary so we might as well make it our 'anniversary weekend' (hmm...pain, dirt, discomfort, exhaustion... Sounds an appropriate way to celebrate a marriage!!), and secondly because M may be running on the Saturday with her gym, and we're both planning to volunteer on the day we're not running...

However, when we went to book last night we got quite a shock. Caravan parks were all either full-up or had 3 night minimum bookings (due to school holidays), and other accommodation wasn't easy to get either, especially affordable stuff. After much searching we managed to find a rather nice little cottage in Cowes, but I'd hate to be trying to book in a month or two.

So, if you're planning to stay (and especially if you want to avoid tenting, which doesn't appeal to me all that much if I'm wanting to be well rested/recovered for the Mudder) be encouraged to get onto it asap.

Stayz worked pretty well for us and it's how we found our place.

A watery weekend of training

This weekend's been a pretty intense little exercise in pushing the boundaries of training.

I originally had a 32km bike ride planned with a friend, but with that cancelled at the last minute we instead headed off to a nearby aquatic centre - primarily for the sake of the kids. But amidst turns on the water-slide, plays in the wave pool and general shenanigans both myself and the Mrs. fitted in a few laps of the pool...

...May I say, I'm glad the swim legs aren't that long!! At this stage I reckon I can manage the 40m expected of me but that's about it! After one short lap of the pool (just over 40m) the heart was pounding and the head spinning and the lungs screaming for air. I'd forgotten just how strenuous swimming is - Which encourages me to find some more time to do as much as I can - both for the swim legs and just for general fitness. So we'll be trying to head back to the pool every fortnight or so and fit in a bit more between now and then.

Then on Sunday I got up at dawn for the first group training session. The wind was blowing and the rain was pretty heavy as I drove down there, so I wasn't totally surprised on arrival to find I was the only one who'd shown up!! So after waiting a while I decided I might as well make the most of it, and headed off regardless. The first part had me worried - A steady downhill followed by a long, trudging uphill through the rain right to the highest point of the park had me feeling lethargic and useless... No way I can do this!! Despondently I headed off along the ridge track and managed to stumble myself into a slow jog... But then something strange happened. The track continued, gently meandering through the forest for many kms - And amazingly, so did I! Still jogging!! It was almost an out-of-body experience as I continued jogging along for several kms, still feeling ok and wondering how I was doing this. I can only assume that the training is paying off....

When I eventually stopped and looked back I felt remarkably proud of myself - Something which does not happen much! So with that pride I then took some detours from my planned route to pick up some geocaches in the park, making the trip a bit more worthwhile and finishing up with a 12km total. I also discovered my planned route got me a bit lost so I'll be revisiting the track route before our next outing here (which hopefully will be in greater numbers!) The rainy morning also gave me the experience of running in mud and soggy shoes, which is something I better get used to.

And then this morning was my first morning of the TM workout/cycle to work combination. Worked pretty well actually, although managing to stomach food at that hour and amidst that exercise is going to be my greatest challenge I think.

Tough Mudder training runs - Melbourne GPS files.

As our team has just commenced some training runs for the upcoming Melbourne Tough Mudder, I've created some GPX files for GPS devices which I'll be using to make sure we don't get lost and track distance, etc.

So I might as well post them up online for others to use if they so wish. 

They'll be available via the links to the right. Let me know if there's any problems with them as they come up. These files can usually be opened in Google Earth or something similar.

Training through the silly season

Back from the Christmas/NY  hiatus - And despite the lack of blogging this hasn't been reflected in a lack of training, thankfully!

I was actually immensely pleased - The down time was put to good work in finding some more time for training. So, while continuing the official workouts every two days, I also commenced the Freeway to 10k podcast series for jogging, which has gone surprisingly well - I even managed a jog on Christmas morning! 

All was going along very smoothly until an uninvited guest turned up for the holidays - gastro. He swept through the entire family, taking me out as well and putting training on a bit of a hold... So for the past few days I haven't done much at all and it has me fretting.

But, work's recommenced and so has training. Tonight's a jog, tomorrow morning it will be back with the workouts and on the weekend there will probably be a long ride and then our team is heading off to Lysterfield park for an 11km trail run, which will be our first activity as a group. Looking forward to it, and seeing how we all operate together.