The Run Test

Workout of the Day:

In the morning…

16 half gassers (50 meters and back)

Sprints meant to be kept under 16 seconds, rest remainder of minute

In the evening…

20 foot legless rope climb

20 pushups

20 second iron cross

No time, no set rest, do as many rounds as you feel like

Another beautiful day of weather in England, and another day of great outdoor workouts to accompany it. This morning I made my way to the stretch of turf that lines the space between neighborhood houses here, and marched off a distance of 50 meters. We used to do this run test every year coming in to summer conditioning for football at Princeton, but it was always on a proper all-weather track. Today’s track was grassy and inclined. Not ideal. Given these factors, I gave myself an extra second’s grace on the time, pushing for 17 seconds or less on all rounds, rather than 16 seconds or less. Good thing. Don’t think I made it under 16 once. I did, however, make every time under 17, only slowing a bit from start to finish. My legs felt the brunt of this and it was not fun overall. But, I have to say I was happy with my ability to recover in just over 40 seconds each set.

Took a few hours off to get some work done then headed up to Marlow Wood to play around in the trees. The idea tonight was to lay off the legs and to do some climbing without a lot of structure. I wound up finding a tree with endless branches to climb and all kinds of creative options. I probably could have tied my rope up 30 or 40 feet up if I wanted, but things would have been precarious getting down to say the least. Just to the side of the rope limb was a set of branches wide enough to do elevated pushups. The branch where my hands were was giving plenty of flex, making the pushups a little more challenging for the stabilization. On the other side of the tree there were two trunks widening out just enough to support a suspended iron cross between them. This was fun, but a little scary as I got tired during round 3. 20 seconds was doable the first 2 rounds, but the 3^rd I only had the strength for about 10.

After 3 rounds of this rotation I decided to work a little extra on rope climbing technique. Got an extra 4 climbs in before calling it a day and heading back home. Tons of fun at a great location. Video is below.