Multiple times I told myself this charging up the hills while running this morning. Like an affirmation, if you tell yourself something many times you'll become to believe it. We challenged ourselves on the two types of hills, the steep hill about 200 meters long which we bounded up at mile pace and the 600 meter gradual hill run at a strong, steady 5K pace. Both hills are equally challenging and leave a feeling of accomplishment.
Dean gives us a brief how to run up hills.
Rob charges up the hill
Catching breath at top of hill, (front)Me, Michael, Deb, Alisha, Adrienne (back) Renee, Jackie, Rob
Renee, Me, Alisha
I had an interesting conversation with Dean about my form. See how my arm swings past the middle of my center line, I am rotating too much. If I strengthen my core along with shoulders, that will help improve my form.
Jackie, Adrienne
A running camp wouldn't be complete without a discussion on stretching and injury prevention. Scientific research shows that static stretching BEFORE a workout weakens the muscles and can lead to injury. Dynamic stretching such as leg swings, arm swings (can be combined with skipping), and other dynamic stretching is much better for you. The exception to static stretching is a stretch specific to an injury, like an IT band stretch before running.
Later in the afternoon we talked again about the mental game including expectations and goals. The mental game aspect is really challenging and I know I can make lots of improvements. But I often avoid it because its out of my comfort zone to evaluate and realize my sabotaging thoughts and actions. The good news is my thoughts can be reframed. One of the runners is a "crazy, elite, nordic track, ultra" athlete with a lot of experience. Her comments about mental game and her techniques are eye opening but she makes it sound so easy.
We are off soon to walk in downtown Flagstaff and eat dinner somewhere else than the cafeteria. Tomorrow at 6am we have more hill running. The scary thing is the schedule for today was "easy" hill running and tomorrow is just "hill workout". Since we didn't have a run this afternoon and today was "easy", that means tomorrow morning will be an extra hard workout. Oh boy!
Happy Running!
4 comments:
This training camp sounds like hard work but must also be very satisfying! Have fun, and tell us more.
Camp sounds like a bowl of fun thus far!
Hope today's run wasn't too bad! Camp sounds hard but motivating!
Training camp sounds awesome, but hard. Congrats on beating the hills!
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