Friday 24 February 2012

750 Miles?!

I thought it would be worth explaining a little bit about my training plan over the next few months. Pretty much everyone I've spoken to about the event say that miles under your feet, along with strength training are the only way to complete the course. The team at Tough Mudder recommends a serious amount of running in preparation, hence the name of my blog; I plan to complete 750 miles between now and the event. Luckily (for the team, not him), we have enlisted the help of Justin O'Hallorhan, owner of Performax Studios and personal trainer, who will be whipping us all into shape - and I need his help more than most! We had our first group training session on Wednesday; a treacherous walk through Harlow Carr woods in the pitch black followed by a 5-6k jog, with some casual (bork) hill sprints thrown in for good measure. I had to stop and walk a couple of times but all in all I was over the moon with how much I'd managed. That said, I found the whole thing really frustrating - my head and legs wanted to go but my lungs were saying a firm "NO!" I know that this will get better in time, but I'm so impatient. Tonight, I'm going for a long swim in the hope that it increases my lung capacity ahead of my first ever Park Run tomorrow morning. In any case it will be a great opportunity to practice regulating my breathing. Park Run is a nationally organised group run - you receive a barcode when you register which records the time of every run you complete, so it's a great way of tracking your progress. I'll be blogging my time every week, which should be a laugh for the first couple of months. If I complete the 5k course in less than two hours, I'll be happy :-) In the meantime, I found this video of a recent Tough Mudder event - it gives you a little taster of what our team is working towards! 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvXlsrSXq7A&feature=youtube_gdata_player 


 Sam x

Thursday 23 February 2012

"I WANT TO BE EPIC"

And so it begins: 38 weeks of intensive training focused on just one day - 18th November 2012 - the day I become epic. At least, that's the plan - whether it actually happens is a different story. This story, in fact.


Two years ago, I set myself a goal - to climb Kilimanjaro and run the New York Marathon in one year. As it turned out, fate had an entirely different plan and just 12 weeks ago I gave birth to my beautiful baby, Ruby. The thought of being away from her, skipping up a mountain for two weeks is not nice, so when a lovely friend of mine told me about an event, TOUGH MUDDER, in which you complete a 12 mile course, featuring 27 obstacles devised by British Special Forces, I was sold. Not everybody's cup of tea, granted but for me it sounded awesome - all I had to do was persuade some other nutcases to run it with me.


It has to be said, I have a lot of love for my work colleagues at Raw Creative. We're a small (perfectly formed) full service agency covering PR to Creative and everything in between. It's fair to say that most of them are pretty open to suggestion (read into that what you will), as long as it's proposed with a good level of gusto and you lead with the promise of free beer. In any case, 'rAw Team' was born and an event countdown sign promptly stuck on the kitchen door - there is no going back.


The first thing you'll notice about the pictures I upload to this blog are the idiots running the course. They are ripped - seriously, they look like they wrestle bears for fun, and are the polar opposite of me. I haven't done any physical exercise for 12 months and have post-pregnancy podge - not a good combination! This blog is the story of my journey from now until the event - hopefully you'll enjoy reading it and leave me lots of helpful tips and supportive comments - I'll definitely need them.


Enjoy,


Sam x