Down and give me fifty

Since finishing my teaching course and postponing my Ironman, I have felt a little rudderless with my fitness.  The Chiltern 100 and Dartmoor Classic were welcome diversions and I do have the Nottingham marathon to build towards but I am struggling to keep any focus.

I did set some goals for breaking some running PBs but to be honest, I was clutching at straws.  Other than a sub4 marathon, breaking PBs has never been a good motivator for me.

So in an effort to shake things up, I went along to a British Military Fitness session today on Clapham Common.  They let you do a free session to see if you like it or not.

The session is built around the military basic fitness program.  Its lots of running mixed in with a drill which can include press-ups, sit-ups, tuck jumps, squats, squat-thrusts, the hateful burpee (squat-thrusts followed by a jump) and the impossible bastardo (burpee with a press-up).  The make it interesting by adding in games or competition which makes you work harder.

This is most of what we did.  I can't remember the exact order:

• Run warm-up
• Stretch warm-up
• Sprints
• Races (sprints combined with exercise like press-ups)
• Shuttle runs (tree and back, two trees and back etc.)
• Indian runs (train of people, back person sprints to front)
• Arm-in-arm running
• 5 man lift (4 people carry one person, switch each leg)
• Cool down

It was non stop apart from a 3 minute water stop.  When you finished an activity, you always ran on the spot or had an exercise to do.

The atmosphere was really nice with some nice chatting and encouragement.  The two instructors looked built and scary but were so nice and encouraging.

As for my performance, I did OK.  Running was fine but my ability with the exercises did vary.  I cannot do sit-ups!!!

I'm pretty sure I'll sign-up.  For £48 a month, you can go to as many sessions as you want and its only a 3 month contract so I'll give it a go.  Maybe it will reinvigorate my training.