Tuesday, July 26, 2011

"May I ask you, what is one of your favorite workouts?"

A few days ago Joey and I went for a casual spin, nothing more than just a 15 mile ride with lots of good conversation. At one point I was asked the question about favorite workouts. I was stumped. I have been coaching for a really long time and I have a ton of workouts but all I could come up with was this crazy 8 ladder that I came up with for Chris, Andrew, Nick and Matt. It goes something like this: 8 lap warm up 8 j's, 8 laps hard, 8 laps easy, 8 laps medium, 8 laps easy, 8 laps easy, 8 minute break, 8 laps easy, 8 reverse j's, 8 laps easy, 8 laps medium, 8 laps easy, 8 laps hard, 8 laps easy, 8 lap cool down. Intensity is based on RPE more than HR. I used this workout as something for them to focus on in the evening session on the ice in Lake Placid.

The question has been bothering me since Joey asked. I tell you this because today I found myself in the Kearns long course pool swimming in a lane next to the swim team and they were doing one of my favorite long course workouts, 50 x 50 on 50sec. I found myself keeping pace with them and they were just as happy to do it as I remember being in college at the pool in Ft. Lauderdale during winter break. Its a challenging and fun workout and the key is to come in on time and not swim though (fall behind).  I managed 43 today before I got dropped and I have to say I am completely FRIED, done, legs left in the canyons and arms left in the pool. Lungs? Hmm, I am really not sure where they are but they are definitely not here. I left the oval this afternoon feeling like the only thing holding me up was endorphins coursing through my veins.

My time in the water today got me thinking about some of the other workouts and how Peri used to get pissed off if we pushed the beginning of a set of 10x 100 with 30 sec rest. I started to think about how I could apply similar workouts to the ice. Yes Joey, you got me thinking about making things both fun and challenging,  so for you, your challenge might look like 40 x 400 on 40.  See you on the ice!

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