After yesterday’s ride I probably should have taken a day off today but I couldn’t help myself. We had our first training run for the Cool Night Classic in November after work today. Honestly, I was expecting an easy session in the park – I was in for a surprise.
We started off along the Brisbane River – there’s a boardwalk that circles around the river coming to a 6km loop. About half a kilometre on we reached a hill, ‘Run up at 60%, run down, rest 20 seconds and run up at 80%’ our instructor said. All I could think about was my legs and whether they’d be able to make it up. The hill was steep and went up about 80m. Half way up the hill I could feel my legs growing tired, the strength in my thighs was vanishing with every step. I made it to the top, twice. Slower than I probably could have but I at least I went for it.
The next part was running about a kilometre across the Story Bridge, starting at a medium pace and towards the last hundred metres moving to a sprint. By now I was stuffed. We were ordered to get down for some planks and situps that involved entwining our arms together and having the trainer lie on our feet to keep them down.
We then got up and started running along the other side of the river towards the stairs at Kangaroo Point. It was an easy run that felt relaxing, until I saw the stairs that is. We stopped for a moment and were told to run the stairs as fast as we could. Just once. Easy. Yeah right. The first half of the stairs were no problem and then my thighs started to burn and it was up to my mind to keep me going rather than my body.
We jogged back towards the bridge again and pushed a lot harder running across it, before jogging back to the Riverside Centre for a quick stretch. I expected an easy workout and instead I got an awesome 40 minute workout that I probably wouldn’t have done myself, especially not today. I’m looking forward to next Monday to see what’s in store.
