There is only 16 days until my body switches to race mode and puts me through about ten nervous shits before allowing me to approach the start line of this epic race. With that in mind, I am brave enough to admit I am clinically obsessed with training. I will continue to put myself through the wringer at a high intensity for the remainder of this week before dropping through a sliding scale of 80-60% until we fly out on 13 November. During this tapering phase, there will be more mobility, stretching, myotherapy, osteopathy…and probably psychotherapy.

It was another manic day at the office, but there was no way I was going to miss another session.

Strength

Dynamic Effort: 7x 3 reps of Good Mornings at 85% of 1RM

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The Good Morning is an advanced weight lifting exercise used to help strengthen the posterior chain consisting of muscles in the legs and lower back. Dynamic reps require a steady eccentric loading followed by an aggressive (but well supported and controlled) concentric reset.

Conditioning

Complete as many rounds as possible in 12 minutes of 1x 5 metre rope climb, 3x deadlifts at 125kg and 5x chest-to-bar pull-ups.

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For those who don’t have access to a rope (like me), substitute a 5m knotted rope clipped to a low-set upright pulley. Set the weight as heavy as possible and raise the weight on the pulley while sitting on the floor and pulling the rope hand over hand.

or yes, you could pull a car instead if you wanted to…

Endurance

Complete 5x 400m runs at time trial pace with 3 minute recovery between rounds.

<;; 17kph, 18kph, 18kph, 18kph, 18kph)

If you’re using a treadmill, set the incline to a minimum of 2°.

My recovery routines during the endurance work were a little thrown out while I tended to a damsel in distress. There was a girl running a couple of treadmills across from me who dropped her phone on the running belt and had trouble finding it. Given that she was at least an 11 out of 10 I had no choice but to offer my assistance. She is in town as a guest of the Melbourne Spring Racing Carnival…I had met her last year so it was nice to catch up again.

Her phone was a mystery for a while…I lifted treadmills (look, pretty model…me so strong), moved things about, rang her phone (of course it was on silent) and shrugged my shoulders. Where was the only place left to look?….INSIDE the treadmill. After removing a few screws and lifting the cowling (look, pretty model…me so handy), there it was. The phone had managed to defy the odds and bounce through a 5mm gap and against the flow of a moving belt, lodging next to the enclosed motor. Happy ending (no, no, no…I’m not that kind of Mudder).

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