Running like an idiot

And quite literally too. Yesterday's running group was a bit more crowded than the last time I was there - a grand total of 4 people including coach Erik. And what a lovely coach he is - last night he'd planned for us to do what he called "the idiot". After a warm-up jog along roads with quite a few stretches of ice-free tarmac (yay!), we were lined up on a small football field, snow-free for the first time this winter (hurrah!) and with only a few puddles of water. The exercise went as follows: run (at 80%) to the first lamp post, back again, run to the second & back, then the third & back, then second, and first. So far so good.

Next exercise: run to the first lamp post, do 10 press-ups, run back, do 10 high-knee jumps, run to the lamp post, reverse press-ups (name? on all fours, face upwards), run back, 10 sit-ups (I modified this to a 20-second plank), finally run to the lamp post and do deep lunges all the way back. By now my knees were starting to wobble a bit - this I'll keep up during the spring for sure, I am slightly sore in unusual spots all around my thighs which shows I need more lunge-stuff, plus my mouse arm is not quite connected. Such a weakling eh…

The final exercise gave no style points whatsoever. We ran across a small field covered in snow - and not any snow, this was thigh-deep snow covered in a 2-inch layer of ice. Coach Erik ran right on top of the snow like a small deer, while I'm light enough to do the same my feet are small enough to cut right through, so despite my best efforts to speed-crawl along I sank every few steps and had to pull my feet back up while not losing my shoes in the process. Not a good idea to wear lock laces (fabulous are they are) while running in deep snow (or thick mud for that matter). The other two also went through.

On the way back Coach Erik outlined the future of this running group - there'll be a new coach soon, who will do the normal Monday "jog" group, and Erik will start a new cross-training group who meets up later in the week. Excellent! I love these evil sessions - in one, which I've managed to miss out on twice, you run to up and down the hospital stairs, 12 floors in total, for half an hour. While I could probably come up with the idea myself - motivation is a different matter - I need a staff pass to get through the door. (This would be handy in bad weather too as there are miles and miles of tunnels to run through, and no one will even notice you're there if you run at night, but it's not enough to make me want to go back to hospital work.)

Oh and my burnt-off hair has now been sorted out. There’s only one way to describe it: “a Rachel”. Didn’t even ask for it but that’s what I ended up with.