I knew the class would be relatively low key because it was the first session. There were five of us – four women and one man who had completed the clinic last summer. The other women were relatively new to running or were athletes in other sports.
Talbot, RDC’s volleyball coach, and Jeff, an ultramarathoner, were our instructors. Tablot explained how the next 12 weeks will work. On Monday’s we’ll meet at Ignite for technique and drills with Tablot. We’ll meet Jeff at the track on Thursdays.
We went right into technique after the logistics were out of the way. Tablot took out a copy of today’s paper which had a picture of the runners in the Mother’s Day run in the city. He then asked us to pick out which runners had the best and worst form. Of the 50 or so people in the front, I think two got his approval.
Tablot explained how we’re supposed to run on the balls of our feet and not heel strike. As easy as it sounds, it isn’t especially if you have always run this way. We ran a quick 400 metre jog to warm up before doing some dynamic stretching. Then it was on to skipping to try to get our feet moving the right way.
Next we moved on to our short WOD –– six or reps of “strides” in the road. We basically had to run a few metres, accelerate and then try to keep the pace while running the CFE way. I knew going into it I would have a lot of work ahead of me. So I wasn’t surprised when Talbot said to me, “yeah we have some issues to work through.” Gulp.
He also told me to run how I normally run this weekend in Red Deer and next weekend in Calgary. Otherwise I may just screw myself in the races. Point taken.
On Thursday we’re at the track to run a mile benchmark to base the rest of our workouts on. Sigh. Next week, Tablot will use his video camera to record us running. Then we’re going to watch the video together in class. Ugh. I can’t wait.
Got some questions about CrossFit Endurance? Click this link from the CrossFit Endurance website.