Spartan 300 Workout Tour

I was excited to hear that the Spartan Workout tour was coming within a 1.5 hour range of me... 2 sites on the same weekend, one on Saturday in Charlotte, NC, and one on Sunday in Colombia, SC.  It's a 2-hr workout meant to give people a taste of the camaraderie, excitement, and physical exertion of a Spartan race.  It's an awesome promotional tool, and it was awesome fun.  I ended up only being able to make it to the Sunday one, because of two other events I wanted to attend on Saturday, but coming out of Sunday, I knew there was no way I could've handled two of them back-to-back, anyway.

Workouts that week:

I might've pushed a bit too hard in the Y2Y Half Marathon.  With races, elites may not push 100%, if the race isn't PR material, and the main thing is to win.  It's more tactical.  Some are against giving anything less than your best, but I can understand the tactical approach, too.  You can only empty the piggy bank so many times effectively.  You can do lots of 85% races and recover quickly, but a 100% race will take you out for a while.  I pushed hard in this one, because it was fun front-running, and I didn't want to risk losing it.  Ends up I had a good time cushion, so I didn't have to push that hard, but I wasn't looking back to see if anyone was chasing.

Sunday, Apr 27, day after the race:
My inner thighs and hammies and calves were sore, but I felt good enough to do a Zombies, Run game.  It ended up being good for flushing out my legs, with decent chases, too.  4.5 in 39:50, 8:56 ave.

Tuesday - my right bursa started hurting during the afternoon at work, for some reason, and I couldn't walk without limping.  This is when I figured that I had overdone it at the race.  I decided to sleep earlier than normal, got 11 hours, and hoped that the sleep would heal it.  Foam rolling seemed to help a wee bit.

Wednesday, Apr 30
Did a 1-hr strength session.  Right bursa was feeling mostly better today, although my right back was very tight all day.  The strength session seemed to help a little bit.

Thursday, May 1
This recovery run was cardiovascularly harder than it should've been, up until the last couple of laps.  Felt kind of "bleh" in the morning and wondered if I was sick (I wonder that a few times per year, although I only get sick once every 4 or so years). Still did Zobies.  5.1 in 46:01, 9:01 ave.

Friday - legs too worn to run.  Would've run otherwise.

Saturday - MS walk and company picnic.

Sunday, May 4, Spartan 300 Workout
Drove 1.5 hours.  Got my "I'm training for a Spartan Race" t-shirt, found a shady spot to do my exercises.

(Registration)

(The Spartans are coming!)

The workout consisted of: Running in place, jumping jacks, burpees, military pushups, wrestler pushups which are pretty cool, a bunch of walking lunges that left me hobbling for a couple of days, animal moves (gorilla, inchworm, bear crawl, seal), high knees, front/back jumping jacks, running.  In total, we supposedly did over a hundred burpees.

Afterwards, to get in some miles for the weekend, I ran around the Saluda Shoals park where the workout was held.  I had driven 1.5 hours, so might as well take advantage of it.  I went 4.4 in 48:33, 11:05 ave.  You can tell the workout sapped my running speed/strength.

It was a good workout.  Lots of fun.  An encouraging atmosphere, with everyone cheering each other on.  Good workout leader.  Would make the 3hr roundtrip and go again.

Monday-Tuesday - I was walking around work, as if I had done a marathon the previous day.... actually, it's probably worse DOMS than what I've experienced in a marathon.  I think it was all of the walking lunges.  It was like rigor mortis was setting in.  My body was craving cardio by Tuesday, though.

Wednesday, May 7
Body started loosening up today.  I could almost walk normally and finally go down stairs again.  I figured that I'd run super slow outside.  It went surprisingly well, though, and I could even manage the zombie chases.  6.0 in 53:53, 8:55 ave.