So today makes the start of my training for Total Warrior. A 10k obstacle coarse over walls, hill and tires, through mud, rivers, more tires, fire and electrified wires. It's advertised as "the toughest 10k and 10 miles on earth" and for some reason on the Thursday just gone I signed up to go with a team from Rokt Climbing Gym. If I'd have known exactly what i was getting myself into on Thursday i may not have signed up. but having an attractive receptionist behind the counter encouraging me to sign up probably gave me that extra push i needed to do it. I picked up the pen and wrote my name down.
So this is going to be fun, in about 26 weeks I will be running around the Lake District, torturing my body in what I'm trying to convince my self will be enjoyable experience. This blog is really not a blog at all, its my training diary getting ready for the pain that is to come. It's my way of having a record of how my training's going and thought, why not, ill put it out there for the world to see.
As people reading this may be thinking "who is this guy," although if you are reading this and don't know me im sorry that your Google search led you to this site. So Here's give you a brief run down. My names Matthew Pape, I'm 26 and Live in Huddersfield. I currently work in a brilliant chip shop in marsh which although may not seem like the best of jobs, my colleagues are amazing and the customers are generally great too. When I'm not at work I spend my time going to Church including helping to run a youth group and playing Bass Guitar in worship. I also love to play computer games, currently i'm spending allot of time on Starcraft 2. And fitness wise I'd say I'm a fitness geek. I love to learn about the workings of the human body, and will read Men's Fitness every time a new one comes out. On top of this I occasionally buy a Science book such as "The Biochemical Basis of Sports Performance" and "Human Nutrition." I find it all fascinating. The problem is, I never really put what i read into practice. Sure for the last 3 months I've been climbing once a week at Rokt and climbing much more sporadically before then, and cycling is my preferred method of transport but i hate getting cold toes so haven't really done that in a while. So this brings us to running, the main obstacle I'm going to have to get past fro Total Warrior is not the Fire pits, the 7 foot high walls or the Electrified Wires ill have to run through, but rather the running itself. So running will take up the bulk of my training in the next 26 weeks. OK 26 weeks may seem like a long time but I really want to be the best I possibly can come race day. This is how i Propose to do it
26th January - 1st March, Flexibility Training. Like stated above most of my time will be running, but as well as that i want to give focus on flexibility for the first 5 weeks of my plan. Years of going to the gym and climbing without caring about stretching has left the range of motion in a lot of my joints far smaller than it really should be, this actually means that when doing a press up i get pain in my wrists because they just don't want to bend that way. Flexibility is much better in other areas, for example i can touch my toes, and although i would be able to complete Total warrior without training flexibility, it seems stupid of me to not try and fix it as part of this.
2nd March - 29th of March, Core Training. Whilst keeping up with my running and flexibility i will be doing body weight circuits for 4 weeks. Ill be using a plan from Men's Fitness for this and is really good because its designed to be beneficial to people of all abilities as it works around how many you can do in an allotted time. So if you can for example do 30 press ups in 40 seconds or can only do 5, you are taxing your body either way due to the speed you do them.
30th March - 10th May, Strength Training. Gym work will probably take up the majority of this training, Squats, Dead Lifts, Lunges, Weighted Pull Ups, Dips, Bench Press, Shoulder Press, Bent Over Row and Planks will take up the majority of the gym work. I have am also playing with the idea of running whilst pulling weight behind me, this will hopefully help in the dreaded energy sapping mud pits.
11th May - 3rd August, Total Warriors training plan. a 12 week plan on their website that i will use as a guide for my training. having already spent around 14 weeks training prior to this i am hoping to be able to step what they're suggesting up a notch, but time will tell really
And so on to today, It was snowing and I was going to meet my mate, i decided to run. She lives just over a mile away from me but as i walked some of the way there i probably did 2 miles in total. It's a start, but its not far and was separated by a few hours spent with her. I also did a bit of stretching of my wrists by placing my hands together and pushing them towards my stomach. A long way to go but it felt really good.
Day 1, 1 mile run x2 untimed
Light Stretching
Links
Rokt Climbing Gym http://www.rokt.co.uk/
Total Warrior http://www.totalwarrior.co.uk/
Men's Fitness http://www.mensfitness.co.uk/
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