Adding resistance

So what happens when you mention to your Nordic Walking instructor that you think you have reached your maximum walking speed?  In my case you get introduced to "Terry the Tyre" and pointed towards some hills.

One of the few "flat" sections on the route...and yes I heard all the related jokes afterwards from my partner.  It is certainly a conversation starter and during yesterday's session I had a huge dog pick the tyre up twice and try to go in the opposite direction with it! The gym equivalent to this would be the stairmill, you work up a sweat within moments.

With the next British Nordic Walking Challenge event coming up 2 November, I've increased my number of NW workouts from the usual 2 or 3 to at least four per week. Two of the walks are fairly laid back because I'm a walk leader assisting with them so I generally focus on technique but I'm trying to get in one hard walk per week to get my speed and endurance up and hopefully that will help my running as well.

Speaking of running, Tuesday's club run was awesome! It was a mostly off road, mystery route where the leader even had us running backwards at one point.  There were a few nettles and brambles and quite a few shouts of "Watch your head!" which quickly got shortened to "Head!" to avoid the low tree limbs. I still managed to get slapped in the face once with a ricocheting branch though. I played it smart and ran slow for the first 1/3, hard on the 2nd third, then easy again on the final bit. I also didn't get hung up on the pace and didn't bother with pausing my garmin at the re-grouping points or when we had to walk through a field with thick overgrowth and thistles so the stats looked a bit willy-nilly once down-loaded.  The only part I can't say I enjoyed was our tempo run around the lake, towards the end of that section I swallowed wrong and couldn't breathe and almost lost my lunch.  Afterwards I was so exhausted I barely made it through our tea before falling asleep on the couch.

See how all over the place the pace was? Loving some of the best pace times though

Back to a track session tonight but it's short intervals which I quite enjoy (once they're done).  Run happy y'all and try something crazy with your workouts every now and then.