XT

Saturday we had the first weekend team practice since December 18.  At every Saturday practice there is a clinic before our long run.  For example, the last clinic was a presentation by Marathon Physical Therapy.  They talked about active warm ups and the importance of taking care of body parts like your interior something band and your anterior lateral something or other. It's all important stuff that I forgot almost immediatly after hearing it.  No offense to the PT people, the information and presentation was great, but there wasn't much in the way of active participation other than a few stretches. 

That all changed this past weekend when coach Kelly invited Cori Di Donato from Avalon Crossfit to lead us in some cross training excersizes.  It was basically an all out boot camp training session.  First she taught us all the moves, some of which were which were pretty basic like: push-ups, jumping jacks, air squats and variations of those.  Then she showed us a full body power move called a "burpee."  It basically involves going from a standing position to a prone position and back to a standing position very quickly.  There's also a push up in there when you are on the floor.  Here is a demonstration of one rep:

Simple but not easy.  Now add sit ups and air squats or reverse lunges.  Do 12 to 15 reps of each excersize in succession without stopping and call that 1 round.  OK, do three rounds in a row without rest.  The three rounds will only take you about 3 minutes and you will feel the burn.  If wealth was measured in sweat you would be purchasing your second private jet by the end of a couple of 3-round sessions. 

The end of my last round looked something like this:

After that little warm up it was time for the weeks long run.  The schedule called for 10 miles but we were spared a full 10 because of the intensity of the 40 minute XT session.  I finished 6 miles in the snow but it felt like a lot more. 

Two days later I could move again.