A recent post on my training team’s Facebook page got me thinking. What IS good training for an endurance athlete…. like….. in general?
I could sit here for hours and preach about strength training and distance work, but I’m going to look at the bigger picture: Not just particular training methods, but actual life stuff. Stuff that’ll put hairs on your proverbial chest. Give you the mental edge. Make ya tuff.
1. Two words: Lunge Jumps
Fucking dry heave. The minute I clock these in my programming I want to curl up and die. Give me 1000 hills to climb on my bike. Give me 40 burpees and 300 kettle bell swings. But please. Please. Dont make me do lunge jumps.
Searing heat in the quads. HR through the roof. These usually come at the end of a heavy leg session and are the precursor to a threshold run.
If you can endure 5 sets of these bastards then you can endure a marathon. Word.
2. A season of Grey’s Anatomy.
Probably the one with the shooter. Or when Denny died. Or the plane crash. Or George and Izzy.
The emotional roller coaster, frustration, sheer joy, laughs, tears, blood and other bodily fluids will fully prepare you for most endurance events, I’d imagine.
Plus you get used to using proper actual medical terminology so that you can impress* medical staff upon your frequent visits to doctors and hospitals with yet more injuries and gross toenails.
*irritate
But don’t mock. I could absolutely perform complex surgery. I know ALL the terminology.
3. The Magic Fifty.
…. or similar. My lovely coach likes to throw these at us occasionally. My equally lovely, but mostly mental pal Chris, absolutely loves these workouts. He asks for them. One time he requested The Magic ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY.
They involve many reps. Usually featuring a few similarly horrible exercises. With as little rest as required. And generally you do these workouts once a week for a few weeks to try and get your time down for the total effort.
There is nothing like the mental battle when you’re only 20 swings into 50 of with the kettle bell. You’ve got another two rounds to go. Your hands are basically bloody stumps and you just. want. to stop.
But you DON’T. That’s what makes you NAILS.
It’s entirely acceptable to puke after one of these.
Me. Dead. After The Magic Fifty.
4. Applying (or trying to apply) for Jobseekers Allowance.
I was very fortunate that my obsessive search for a new job came to a swift end in May. Because I lost one day. One ENTIRE DAY to this farce of a process. And many have lost MORE than one day.
Name. Age. DOB. Redundancy details. Not accepted. Name of first dog. Wrong. Name of first neighbours pet hamster. Air speed velocity of an unladen sparrow. Nope. Wrong. Death.
Honestly. It was the in the top ten most harrowing experiences of my life. But it taught me RESILIENCE in the face of adversity and you definitely need this for endurance.
Me at the job centre. Aka Bridge Of Death.
5. Shit-Awful Runs.
You know the type: Lead legs, no energy, dog shit in your trainer tread.
These make you head-strong. Not at the time, like. Cause at the time you just want to be on the sofa eating beige food, but honestly they do make you better at coping when the endurance stuff starts to hurt.
6. Winter Training.
Now I’m not going to say it’s tough in Scotland because in the grand scheme of things, a few weeks of ice and maybe a few snow days are nothing compared to a few months of solid night time and 8 feet of snow.
However.
In Scotland, we seem to be blessed with the type of weather that feels mild to begin with but then you find a puddle with ice at the bottom and because it’s so fucking dark and there are so many manky leaves everywhere, and you find out about this puddle as you wake from a coma with a broken hip.
Winter training makes your lungs hurt. Makes your toes cold. Makes everything cold, actually. It makes your nose stream and your ears ache. But it definitely makes the summery runs feel better.
As long as they’re not too melty…..
7. If it makes you hate life, it’s good preparation.
And that sums it up, really. I love a good workout, but the ones that make all the difference are the ones that make you want to cry and stop moving forever.
It’s the subtle things too, like that Economics Lecture you sat through at uni, determined for the stuff to stick. It didn’t. You tried. But it taught you that LITERALLY NOTHING is worse than that.
So. Do more stuff you hate, and then nothing will seem as bad as that!
(Not really…..)
Iron Bean 