Yesterday, I had my ass handed to me, garnished with all the trimmings on a silver platter. Now, had this been on the wrestling mat or in a squat rack, that would be one thing. No, this was much, much worse. I got served by a 5-foot-nothing, 100-nothing, sweet-as-pie girl... and a Stairmaster.
Long story longer, being that I work in radio, I get notices for public service events, media days, and the like. The Charlotte Fire Department was promoting an open try-out for today and offered the media a chance to come in a day early to see if they could handle an abbreviated version of their minimum basic physical fitness test: 3 minutes on a stair climber at a rate of one foot per second wearing a 75lb weight vest (and no grabbing the bars for support), a 150-foot hose carry and 50-foot pull, a 40-foot heavy chainsaw carry (one in each hand), and a 100-foot dummy drag (weighing 170lbs). Oh yeah, everything after the stair climb was performed still wearing a 50lb weight vest.
I volunteered, thinking I'm in fairly good shape. I've trained hard in the gym and on the track for over four years. I was ready. I went, I saw, and I got my ass kicked. I finished the course without stopping, though I didn't go very fast. I spent the next hour sitting propped up by a concrete wall chugging water and waiting for the stars to go away. I was okay with that considering the three other media types who did it: one woman made it to halfway through the dummy pull, one guy collapsed right after the stair climb, and another woman (aerobics instructor on the side) breezed through relative to the rest of us.
That's not the girl, though. The girl I'm talking about was in the recruit class that was assigned to help out with the media day. She RAN through all the stations after the stair climb and finished with barely a heavy breath and a light dabbling of perspiration. Tiny thing. Sweet thing. Kick-my-ass thing. Me like [img]smile.gif[/img]
However, that brings me to the point of this here training log. Following my bittersweet finish, I informed the captain overseeing the course that I was fairly ashamed of my performance and that I would be back in mid-August to EXCEL at the FULL course. I will repeat these words on-air Monday morning when this captain comes on the show with us and I give my report. By doing that, I will have reached the "must" stage talked about here:
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=508772.
I have given myself twenty weeks to prepare for this. That may be an extended time, but I have not trained for something like this since I wrestled in high school eight years ago. My start date is March 28; the end date is August 15. I had planned to start keto in April, but since it looks like I'll be training for VO2 max, I might want to keep carbs in the equation. Nutrition is not an issue; I think I know enough to develop an effective diet that I can afford.
However, the training side is where I lack knowledge of this sort. I've always trained for strength and/or power, never endurance, especially not weighted endurance. The only formatted program of which I know is this one:
http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle.do?article=251run2. While it addresses the energy system work I think I need, I'm worried that it doesn't provide for weighted running or incline/stair climbing. Whatever days I'm not running, I'll be doing bodyweight exercises for endurance (pushups, chins, situps, reverse pushups, etc). If I become truly sadistic, I'll sprinkle in the bodyweight stuff DURING the running.
Since I still have a few days to implement something, I would greatly appreciate any suggestions you might have, anything from a tweak here and there to full-blown training programs. I would like to have SOME idea of what I'm doing going into Monday morning's show, but at the very least, I want a rock-solid plan and timetable (if different from the above program) by March 28.
Wow, my first blog. I'm so happy *sniff* [img]smile.gif[/img]