Almost Blacked Out

After a few solid days of training with a few fellow CW guys, today was the first day back in the water at Canham with the Pro's.  It was one of the hardest practices of my life.  I had no idea what I was in for when I showed up.

We started out with some core exercies and V-ups.  We stretched it out and moved into the athletic training room to ride stationary bikes and walk on the treadmill.  We alternated moderate intensity and easy paces on the stationary bike.  The coach combined the bike work with some body position exercies while we were working out.  Afterward, we moved outside.  It was a muggy 85 degrees out and had just started raining.  We did lots of plyometric stuff.  Jumping, side skipping, high knee running, etc.  The running was combined with some dips and back exercises.  At this point I was feeling exhausted.  It had been over 45 minutes of exercises I hadn't done in months, if not years.  All 5 of us were struggling, it was obvious.  We were dripping with sweat and overheating.  Our final set outside was 4 x 50 meter sprints.  I was already worn out, I wasn't sure how I would finish up.  The coach lined us up and yelled "go".  My performance was pathetic, I was tying for 3rd while the 5th place guy was running barefoot on the grass (he forgot shoes).  I was feeling my head throb after just the first one.  We walked back to the starting line and did it all over again.  After the second one, I noticed my vision was getting dark.  It was clear that I hadn't eaten enough before practice... combined with the fact that my body was entirely unprepared for this type of exercise.  The 3rd race was sad, I came in 4th behind everybody with shoes.  When I finished, I was out of breath, dragging my feet and my vision was almost entirely dark and I was feeling slightly dizzy.  I knew it wasn't entirely dangerous to finish up the set, even though I wanted to quit.  I walked back to the starting line and got ready for one last race.  This is when it got ugly.  The new guy with no shoes came over from the grass and lined up with us.  I thought to myself, "please just don't lose to the barefoot guy".  The coach yelled and we all started sprinting.  Seconds later, we were finished.  I came in last behind everybody including the shoeless wonder next to me.  Nothing quite says "you suck at running" as when you lose to a guy without shoes.

Thankfully we moved inside to finish up dryland.  We did medicine balls, jumping, more plyometrics, lunges and then... kickboxing.  At this point we were all looking at each other like... will it ever end?  We finished up with some additional core work on the rings.  After 1 hour, 35 minutes, we were done with dryland.

We hit the pool for a moderate workout.  Nothing too tough, Coach Mark probably felt slightly guilty for almost killing us earlier in the practice.  I was happy to see half of the workout as "kick".  We did some 25's, 35's and 50's underwater with fins.  I finished up with a 300m with full equipment (fins, paddles) backstroke in 3:34.  Not bad.

That dryland was probably the hardest non-water workout I've ever experienced.