Haven't been able to post on all days, after exercises, but that hasn't stopped me from doing them! 9.2: Had an hour of karate, we practiced basic stuff, since there were quite many of yellow belts present. Basic practice is useful every now and then, grinding the basics into muscle memory... I also noticed that my stance is too narrow, I easily loose my balance when taking large steps or when moving forward fast, so I should practice a more wide stance. 11.2: Went to ski with a few buddies of mine, we ski'd 9km in 50min. One of our buddies does traditional style, so my and my other friend had to slow down a bit as we ski in the skating style. Then we took a sauna for about an hour, good stuff! 12.2: Did a 5km jog in 28min, took it a bit easy. Also, decided to time a cooper while jogging easily in this, 2.5km. Didn't walk for any part of the 5km jog. Soon I'm going to have to try faster cooper runs!
Well, today I got some good news! I have my tests coming up on the 29-30 of March, and by then I should be able to run at least 2600m. That is the lowest distance permitted on the cooper. I should be able to: 40 push ups in a minute 46 sit ups in a minute Jump 2.6m without taking speed and run at least 2600m in 12 min (preferably 2800-2900m) This would get me very high points in the test. Getting excited here!
14.2: Did 45 minutes of snow shoveling, it's snowing a lot again, and then went to Karate practice. Had practice for about an hour, the basic training with the beginner groups. It's good to grind basics every now and then to make sure the technique is right to be able to do the more complicated moves with better performance. 15.2: Did 45 minutes of snow shoveling again. Other than this, didn't have a lot of time to do other exercise today, but the rest of the week should be running.
Some updates again! 18.2: Went to ski and skid about 10km in 47min. A bit slower than previously, but it was snowing and a lot, so that slowed us down a bit. Ran out of the breath due to the coldness as well and the wind, max HR was 184, and it averaged at 175. Really tough. 19.2: Well, the previous day it snowed a ton, so I had to shovel snow for about 1 hour and 30 min. I decided to put on my HRM and see how efficient snow shoveling is. According to my Suunto, the HR averages at about 120-125, and burns about 600kcal per hour. Seems like a light recovery exercise. 20.2: Went to the gym today, did some interval cycling on one of the training cycles for 20 minutes and ran intervals on the treadmill for 10 minutes after that. Then I did a series of incline sit ups (25, 15, 10) and some chin ups (10, 8, 6). And to cool this off, snow shoveling once again when I got home... Additional 30 minutes for this.
On the 26th of February, reconnoiter overcame the flu.... Yes, took the Sunday easy, did stretching and went for a 4km walk, didn't want to stress my body straight after the flu yet. 27.2: On Monday however, it was time to test my max heart rate. I did interval running for 35 minutes, and then did incline sit ups and pull ups. I did 4x 8 minute jogs, and in between I sprinted for 30-45 seconds, and tried to push my system as hard as possible. I have to admit, that after the second and third sprint, I had to walk for a moment to be able to continue. But, I did reach 198BPM on the third sprint, which I thought was pretty high. And as mentioned, I did incline sit ups and pull ups after this. I did 3x 25 sets of incline sit ups, and between each set of sit ups I did 7 pull ups. 28.2: Recovery day, it snowed a lot, so I got to shovel snow for 45 minutes. 29.2: I ran 5km in a new record time for me. I got the 5km finished in 26 minutes and 15 second, which I thought was really good. I should be able to get 2600m in a cooper, at least I hope to be able to get it. As you guys may have noticed, I have prioritized running activities over Karate at the moment, because I feel that this is more important currently for me. I currently feel so that I need to have different kind of training to be able to reach my goal, and karate will have to stand aside (at least a bit) to be able to reach this goal.
We headed off for a week of vacation on the 1st of March. We went skiing in the north, and I managed to stay healthy for 3 days and fell ill... I'm really surprised that 7 hours of down hill skiing can tax 3400kcal, that's a lot. So yeah, between Sunday and tuesday, I burnt a bit over 10000 kcal. Woke up on Wednesday with a fever and cough. I didn't have a cough on this sunday any longer, but I decided to keep a rest day just in case. I still have a bit more than two weeks until the tests, so I'm going to be running 6 days a week until then. I'm really getting worried about running, I hope I can get the 2600m passed. Anyways, went for a 7.3km run today, averaged at 169bpm on the HRM, and did the run in 44 minutes. Didn't go as fast as I would have liked to, but I feel nice and refreshed now.
Haven't updated in a while due to lack of time, but basically, I've been running 4-5 times a week since the 12th. Until last weekend. Between 12-18 of March, I did various sprint exercises as well as running exercises. I ran 4 times during those days and practiced mostly at high heart rate. Hoping to increase the time I can run above 185BPM. After that, between 19-25 of March, I did a bit of easier running practice. I went for longer and more easy jogs and pulled a few sprints at the end of them. Also, I got myself a weight vest from a friend to borrow, so I jogged a few times with 7.5kg vest on. On the 25th, I went for a jog with the weight vest, 2kg ankle weights and 2kg wrist weights. Jogged for about 50 minutes. 27.3: Went to run in the local running track, did easy jogging and a bit of running for 30 minutes, making sure my legs haven't stiffened but still work. After that I held a 25 minute stretching session. 28.3: Today I did 30 minutes of stretching and took a sauna... Calming me down. Tomorrow I'm leaving for the tests. Will see how the Cooper and physical tests go. I'll report back! Basically, what I have is the following: Cooper (12min) where the first 1300 meters are uphill and the rest as long as we can run is downhill. The incline and decline isn't much, but its enough to slow down and stress. I've been looking at different ways of running the cooper, will see tomorrow though. I'm aiming for 2600-2700m. 2600m will get me a pass, and I've never been a great runner, thus it'd be great if I were to achieve 2700m. Physical strength test: max points for 48 sit ups, 43 push ups in 60 seconds and forward jump without speed is 2.60m. Those would get me max points. Last time I tried, I got 44 sit ups and 38 push ups in a minute, and jumped 2.25m. Evacuation test: This is an interesting one. I'm gonna have to "evacuate" (probably carry) a 55kg doll that has extra gear on it (55kg+15kg) for 150m in max 120 seconds. 40 seconds will get me max points. I'll let you know how they went, hopefully I'll succeed and well!
Alright, well, here's the results! I passed, and quite well in my opinion. I got 5/9 points in the physical exam, which I felt was adequate for me. I was pleased with the results. I ran 2670m in the Cooper, and to be honest, it was pretty rough. It was mostly uphill (about 1800m) on a bad condition gravel/asphalt road. I got 1/3 points for this. Straight after this, we had the evacuation test, where we were ordered to carry a 55kg doll for 150m in under than 2 minutes. I had 5 seconds remaining and a bit under 10m in front of me. The supervisor told me to run to achieve 2 points. I took three big steps and leaped forward and landed on my knees with the doll over the finish line. I finished the evac. test in 57 seconds, which gave me 2/3 points. Next up, I had the fitness tests (sit ups, push ups and distance jump). I jumped 220cm, did 48 sit ups and 32 push ups. This gave me 2/3 points as well, and I thought it went okay, I was expecting a bit better from distance jump and push ups, but considering that all of those activities had been done in under 30 minutes, I think I did pretty well. This gave me in total 5/9 points as I said. 2/9 points would still get a pass in the test, so I figured I did pretty well. After the physical exams, I noticed that my pants were wet from my knee, and I pulled up the trouser leg, and realized I had a 4x4cm asphalt burn right on my knee. Well, at least I got something to take with me back home from the test! Thanks for all of your support, I shall now continue with karate. I realized how important it is to keep up with basic fitness at the same time. I will thus continue to run and go to the gym regularly and not only do karate!
