Warrior Dash!

 Earlier this month, Dawn and I ran the Warrior Dash together.  It was a blast: 3 miles of trail and field running, with about 12 obstacles to climb over, under, through, and around.  It culminated with a fire jump and a mud crawl.  First we ran it together, and even picked up a new friend!  Dawn describes it better than I do, so read about it here: http://www.biggestloserbound.blogspot.com/

After we finished the race and were hosed off, I decided to run it again.  I finished it in just about 43 minutes by Dawn's watch, but my chip did not function properly, so there is no official time.  The fastest man was about 20 minutes, so my time was not impressive.  But considering that I'm not a runner, and had already run it once, I'm pleased with the result, and it was a lot of fun.  Here I am at about the halfway point.  I'm not last! This is my second time through, so my knees are already muddy and bloody.

Here's the finish line:

This race taught me several things about my kettlebell and bodyweight training.  First, I learned that cardio is king.  Nothing gets your lungs burning and heart pounding like kettlebell swings, snatches, and jerks.  I had been doing my share before this race, but I had not run much.  I had enough wind for two three mile trail runs, with obstacles, all in about two and a half hours of nonstop action.  Afterwards I was hungry, but it did not beat me up like I thought it would. But here's the thing: I never do marathon kettlebell training sessions.  Most of my workouts are under 30 minutes, and consist of long sets (up to 10 minutes) or intense intervals.  A combination of anaerobic and aerobic training will give you the endurance you need when you need it.

The second thing this race taught me is that moving your body through space is much more important than moving objects in space.  In the past, I moved heavy iron, and worked up to a one arm overhead press (bent press) of 135 pounds, and a deadlift of over 400 pounds.  However, I don't think that I could have done nearly as well in this race training like that.  In the real world, you don't lift a maximum load once; you move your own body, and perhaps a lighter load.  My training consisting of pullups, pushups, one legged squats, and kettlebell snatches and presses really prepared me for an event like this.  I could climb, crawl, and jump with the best of them.   The stronger you are, the easier everything gets.

The final thing that I learned is something I already knew- fitness should be fun.  If your fitness routine is tedious drudgery, then you are robbing yourself of the joy of health and strength. When I was a kid, I would go into the woods and run, climb, crawl, and jump, and come home so muddy that my folks would spray me off in the yard before I could come into the house.  Today, as an adult, I have to pay $50 to do that.   That's alright; I enjoy kettlebell and bodyweight training.  If I didn't, I'd find something else to do. 

Do you enjoy your fitness training?  Is it making you stronger, faster, and more injury proof?  If not, shoot me an email and learn the joy of kettlebell lifting.