Swift – Hills and Progression to Spilled Merlot

Swift – Hills and Progression to Spilled Merlot

At 0515 on Tuesday morning, several PAX departed from the Vine Restaurant in Ballantyne, but they were without Q.  After a brief jog, they returned to find the Q getting his shoes on and feeling a little disoriented.  Quickly, they gathered everyone and headed out for a little more warm-up.

The THANG:

• Approximately 1.25mi jog, drop off the Bagpipe PAX that were in for some warm-up (seemed to be several more than normal), and then continue jog over the bridge to the parking lot behind the old SPX/Metlife/now abandoned office building.
• Heel walk and stride it out, Toe walk and stride it out, high knees and stride, more strides, and end up at Dunreggan Brae.
• Bounding up the half of the hill (got form right eventually) with a jog back down.  Repeat
• Sprint up the whole hill with jog back down. Repeat for 3 total.
• Sprint down the hill. Jog to recover.
• Sprint up the hill.  Jog over to Bull Ring.
• 2 mile progression run.  Goal is to drop 5 seconds every 400m – which equates to :20 seconds per mile for pace.  Worked out to be three laps around bull ring and then head back to COT with AYG.
• COT.  No course or distance this week due to Q fail (picked up the wrong watch), but full hour of running.

The Moleskin:

• If you are thinking this was the workout SIB was doing, then you are wrong.  We did it in reverse, and Reddogs copied US…though there was an interesting section in there we may have to borrow for a future workout.
• Working on the hill form was important through the Hill Bounding.  See link to an example here: http://youtu.be/1MRqkhP-P90. We only did it 2 times, but this could be a workout in itself.  On running an actual hill, you wouldn’t be so exaggerated, but it programs in good form for running uphill – stay on the forefoot, slightly forward lean, smaller strides.  Which is actually the similar form to running downhill – the mistake we can sometimes make downhill is to lean back, stride too far.
• 2 mile progression run was apparently “confusing” in the explanation, but the goal is to get faster and find a new gear each time.  If you start out too fast (most started on the 7:40 pace with YHC), then you may not be able to hit an extra gear over the last 0.5mile that are run at 5:40 and 5:20/mi respectively.  Start at a slower pace, or just make it a goal to find the extra gear each 0.25 mile.  YHC didn’t like the “uphill” back towards COT and was glad there weren’t many around the see the dry heaving.  It was the weather…
• Abacus was out once again and making steady progression.
• Spinner is apparently a cyclist who only “sometimes” runs, so I would hate to see what he could throw down given some gears and wheels.
• Strange Brew was a FIFO, but gave it all to the end.  Travel is a pain but the man has a plan.
• Silk was swept into his 2nd F3 workout, both running, and is pretty smooth for a guy getting ready to jump out of planes.
• Honey Bee earns the recruiter award of the week for 2 EHs in the past 2 weeks.  Unofficial record I’m sure, but he is getting the guys to come out and come back.
• Brisket wasn’t confused when taking on Swift instead of Bagpipe this week, for he showed he belongs any where he puts in that kind of effort.
• Q will try to get these Backblasts done a little more quickly, which is about the only thing that Fast Twitch has on the Swift at this point…