JB, Dougy, Shawn, and Big Al all took on the Spartan Race this pat Saturday.  Highlights included Al’s labored breathing up the first hill of the day, Dougy’s incredible good looks and beer garden antics, and Shawn’s coolness…

Dougy always looking fashionable

The  boys after the race.  We were a little muddier before hand but visited the ‘Fire hose’ station post race to a spray down.

Big Al signed us up for the first heat of the day, so we were officially the first 4 racers in the bear garden.  Good times this weekend.

What a weekend for GWA clients.  We had 2 people compete it the BMO Marathon, 4 in the BMO half Marathon and 2 people race in the Coaster XC mountain bike marathon.  Way to go everyone! BMO Marathon:

Pargol Lakhan, 3:25:15 a personal best

Alison Meredith, 4:55:22

BMO Half Marathon:

Cassandra Osborne, 1:35:18 a personal best

David Lancaster, 1:55:45

Patricia Horton, 2:08:46

Carol Ng, 2:25:30 a personal best

Jon Bula’s bike before the Coaster XC Marathon

His bike after…It was an extremely muddy day.  I finished in 3:03 (11th in my age group).

I know many of our clients are training for various running races coming up this summer/fall, and as such I blogged about the importance of the aerobic system and of doing training sessions at a low HR. In order for your running (or cycling) to benefit from aerobic adaptations, training at a HR of roughly 180 minus your age is very important. After you have spent some time doing proper base (aerobic) training here are some runs that will push you outside your comfort zone and help with your speed and your anaerobic ability.

Continuous Hills

• Find a hill that takes about 60 seconds to run up
• Run hard up hill and jog back down right away
• Try to keep recovery jog around 75 seconds (no more than 90 seconds) and relax breathing during that time

The Workout:

• 10 minute warm up jog, and then start with
• 12 minutes of Continuous Hills
• *increase by 2 minutes each workout until you are at 20 minutes of Continuous Hills
• 10 minute cool down jog

Broken Kilometer

• On a track alternate running hard for 200 meters and running easy for 200 meters until you’ve run 1000 meters.
• For each ‘Broken Kilometer’ you will run hard during the 1^st, 3^rd and 5^th 200 meters and easy for the 2^nd and 4^th 200 meters.
• The goal is to keep the 2/3 ratio of hard to easy running
• If you are running 4 minute kilometers then try to maintain running 40 seconds for the hard 200 meters and 60 seconds during the easy 200 meters (a 4-minute kilometer is pretty fast you will likely look to run closer to 5-minute kilometer)

Workout:

• 10 minute warm up jog
• 5 x 1000 meters
• 3 minute recovery between each km
• 10 minute cool down jog

Day five of the training camp was an epic day.  We rode the same route that the Levi’s GranFondo follows.  It was honestly one of the most beautiful rides I’ve ever done.  This was a fantastic 103 mile day through rolling hills, ranch land, forests, and beautiful coast line.  There were some great challenging climbs and the descents were steep and wickedly fast.  We rode for over 6 hours today…big day.  Check out the map of our route.

Day 4 - on our way to Napa, but to get there we have to ride 65km including a fairly challenging 14 km climb.  Today is the ‘infamous’ Duck Ride.  The entire crew rides to Napa and then on to Cindy’s Backyard Kitchen for lunch.  The challenge however is to refrain from drinking too much wine…

After a pretty challenging 2.5 hours of riding we all arrive en mass to this great restaurant in the Napa Valley.  The wine is promptly ordered and then the fun begins.  We all begin to drink too much wine and then enjoy a fantastic meal.  The problem is the ride home.  We have to climb an extremely steep 8 km hill to get out of Napa Valley, I’m talking 15-20% grade for much of it.  Let’s just say that at one point I thought the duck I ate was either going to fly North or South, but apparently it couldn’t make up it’s mind…

The group sitting down for a mid ride snack…

The Duck (minus a small bite from the bottom left, couldn’t help myself)

What could be better than 6 days in Californian wine country riding with the Trek Red Truck Racing Team?  Not much if you ask me.  We just finished our 3rd day riding.  The weather has been perfect and the riding unbelievable. 

Day one:  this was supposed to be an easy day.  100km, easy pedaling to get the legs going for the week.  Well it didn’t take long for the kids on the team (kids because this is a young team of racers all under 23) to pick up the tempo.  The masters athletes were soon off the back (I stayed on just to about the last 200m of the short climb but that hurt…).  So much for taking it easy.  We road pretty hard for the rest of the day as well.  Fun times.

Day two:  This was a flat 120km rip.  I decided to have a go with the young boys today because there weren’t any big hills.  They had me on the edge a number of times, but I managed to hang in there.  It was so fun.  Average speed for the ride was over 35 km/h.  There was a stretch of 15km or so where we didn’t go below 42 km/h and up to 50.  That part almost killed me, hahaha

Day three:  I took it easy today (115km with only a few attacks and hard short hills) as the rest of the week gets really hard with long days and big climbs.  The boys were off in their own group and apparently it was a good decision not to join as they hammered today.

Self photo on the top of the climb today.

The Natural Break….hahaha

Coffee break.  Coffee or coke and a snack.

What a great time!  Our Auction the Trainer was a huge success.  With over 100 people coming down to enjoy some food and beverage and partake in the festivities we were able to raise $5000 for the Athletics for Kids charity.  Our raffle prizes were amazing again this year; thank you so much to everyone who donated.  Your generosity is greatly appreciated.  Some highlights included:

• planks while balancing a beer on your back
• shirtless icky shuffle race followed by a beer chug
• Dougy’s skipping prowess
• the costumes
• Carderos after party

Check out the photos….

Stella and Jon being punished by Gurginder (the shooter we had to drink while working out was disgusting)

Al H. and Shawn - sweet beer plank

Alsi - making cash $ for the kids…

More torture for Jon - Stella looked like she was having fun…

You can’t always win the prize you hoped for, hahahaha

Why is he so happy?  The full beer maybe?

Client push ups - always a favorite

Shirts off race - that was because of the beer chug (didn’t want spillage on the shirt…)

Al H, Dougy and I have all participated in a few TRX workouts in the past couple weeks.  We were very impressed.  The corporate slogan “All Core All the Time” really sums up the sessions.  The workout was fun, challenging and a great way to change things up.  My session today was a leg/shoulder/core focus.  It was a blast.  There were enough progressions and small changes made to make this hard for anyone - you guys should have seen Dougy’s leg shaking, hahaha.

TRX TRAINING @ GWA

Designed by Navy Seals, TRX® Suspension Training is a new style of training that will challenge your body like never before.  It’s ALL Core ALL the Time, and is great for anyone looking to take their fitness to new levels. The TRX® Mini Camp combines suspension training with athletic style drills, and will be coached by Gerard Recio, a Course Instructor with TRX®, with over 13 years experience as a conditioning coach and educator in the field.

4 WEEK TRX Mini-Camp March 19-April 14^th

• Tues—12 & 7pm
• Wed—7am
• Sat—11am

• 1x wk $100 +hst (4 sessions)
  
• 2x wk $200 + hst (8 sessions)
  
• All missed sessions can be made up within the 4 weeks. Space dependent
  

Email info@groundworkathletics.ca to sign up or speak with Jon or Troy

Friday March 16^th is the date of our 5^th annual Auction the Trainer charity event. In the past 4 years we have raised close to $20,000 in support of Right to Play. Last year we raised close to $8000, and for 2012 our goal is 10K. This year we are changing things up a bit with a local charity Athletics for Kids. Below is their Mission Statement and Goal:

Mission Statement

To work diligently and thoughtfully in providing financially disadvantaged youth in the community with greater access to organized sport in conjunction with their academic endeavours.

Goals

A4K’s overarching goal is to be there to assist any B.C. child in their dream of playing amateur sports. In other words, we want all kids to have the opportunity to play

We are really excited about the opportunity to help local BC kids afford amateur sport. Similar to last year we will be auctioning off our trainers. The highest bidder wins 15 minutes where anything goes as far as making your trainer do the exercises you hate the most. We will also be showcasing ‘group events’. A Group of trainers will do something fun and embarrassing if a certain dollar figure of pledge is met (last year Shawn shaved his head, what will it be this year…).

We will be featuring a cash raffle again this year, with tones of great prizes generously donated by clients and friends. We would appreciate any prize you might be able to provide for the raffle – nothing is too big or too small.

You are invited to come take part in the event. Friday March 16^th 5-7pm at Groundwork Athletics (and for those interested till much later than that). There will be an assortment of beer, wine, and snacks. As always good times guaranteed. Don’t miss out on what is guaranteed to be a great event.

To donate a prize or for any event questions please contact: Jon Bula jon@groundworkathletics.ca

It’s funny how when you get fit and are training regularly how easy it is to fall into the trap of training at high intensities every session. While this seems to make sense it is not how you should do things. High intensity training has a place but just like anything else too much is detrimental. Are you suffering from nagging injuries (sore back, hamstring, IT band, shin splints…), getting sick more than once per year, waking up in the middle of the night, digestion problems (bloating, heart burn, gas…)? Do you know these are all symptoms of overtraining? Too much hard anaerobic training actually becomes detrimental to your health. There are many athletes (professional, amateur, recreational) who are really fit but unhealthy. They are often injured, sick, aren’t sleeping properly, have frequent stomach and intestinal issues. Isn’t exercise supposed to make you healthier? Yes it most definitely will, but like anything else exercise/training requires balance. For many highly active people aerobic base training is ignored. Sustained aerobic exercise at a heart rate of roughly 180 – age (no higher, but up to 10 beats lower) is extremely beneficial to all types of athletes. Obviously endurance athletes require more of this than a sprinter. Recreational athletes, fitness instructors/enthusiasts will all benefit greatly from more aerobic work. Developing your aerobic system improves your body’s ability to use fat as a fuel. Too many of us have an undertrained fat metabolism and rely too heavily on sugar (blood sugar, liver and muscle glycogen) as our main fuel source during exercise. When you decrease some of your anaerobic training sessions and substitute some aerobic work you will greatly improve your fitness. Your immune system is bolstered, you will shift to burning more fat as a fuel; you will become healthier overall. A healthier body is more resilient to injury and will perform at a higher level. With the proper amount of aerobic training you will recover better from hard workouts and in turn be able to work harder during hard training sessions and competition.

It can be difficult to trust that you are benefiting from the relatively ‘easy’ low heart rate training sessions, but take it from me you are. As someone who recently fell into the trap of too many intense training sessions, I can’t express enough how much better I’m feeling now that I’ve dialed things down a bit. Personally I’m working on a 2 month long aerobic base period. I’m not letting my heart rate get above 143. It’s been humbling going out for runs and getting passed… What is really exciting however, are the improvements I am seeing after only 2 weeks. I’m already running and riding faster at my lower heart rate. Who knew that training slower would make me faster, and that my nagging calf tightness would go away? The goal of any athlete should be to perform at higher speeds/intensities with less effort. The only way to get there is to include aerobic base work as part of your training plan. Optimal performance comes from a balanced approach and understanding how to train effectively both for your aerobic and anaerobic workouts. Just because you can train hard every session doesn’t mean you should.

Jon Bula, MSc, endurance athlete enthusiast…