Training Yesterday

And the training continues…yesterday Traci, Jake and I headed out to the same place I went the day before. The picture to the right is a pretty accurate picture without all the people. We ran about a mile to warm up and get to Twin Falls (so named twin falls because there are falls here and just up the hill is bigger falls).

The run is good because it starts out nice and flat and about halfway through it goes from flat to almost straight up. At the rocky parts we focused on pausing just for a split second on each rock and bursting forward to create that muscle memory. Once the rocky parts round out and we start going downhill we focused on pushing off our heel so we could get the hamstrings firing as well. After the run we enter the picture above from the left and we were above the kayaker and on the other side of the falls.

There we got in the water up to our shoulders and did about a 40 minute workout. Jake made things interesting of course because he thought we were drowning, so we had to reassure him every once and awhile. He pretty much swam the whole time!! So the exercises we did were high knees, slalom, box jumps (from a lower rock to a higher rock…still under water), one-legged step ups (from a lower rock to a higher rock…still under water) and by then Jake as all worked up so we took a break and threw the stick for him. The current was pretty strong so he had to really fight it…but showed poise when actually up against the current. He realized pretty quickly that he is tall and strong and so he would just stand up. It was cute.

After that we tried a few different things actually using the current against us. I wanted to do some sort of push ups/pull ups so I was trying to think of how to do that, when Traci figured out a good solution. She realized that the falls weren’t very tall, so we could actually hold onto the rocks at the falls and the water spilled over us. From there we did “pull ups” actually just pulled our bodies up the strong current and it was HARD! We did three sets of 30 and by the 25th rep you were hating yourself pretty bad!

We also figured out a way to do sit ups with the current and the falls. We switched directions from the pull ups and the current was so strong that we had to hold each others feet in a tight grasp and you were almost lifted over the falls! It was great!

So that by far is my favorite trail/river workout EVER!! I love running the trails, but this element of using the water as resistance is the best. I will be doing that more often. So then we ran the mile back in with heavy shoes and clothes (we took our shirts off, but Jake walked all over them…) and that made the mile back hard too! We made it back in the same amount of time though, so that is good.

Jake was so exhausted I actually beat him on the run…I have never beat him!!! He got in the car and immediately fell asleep. CUTE CUTE!