Decathlon Training Session 2 – Northwood

I’m sitting here now typing this update, and I ache pretty much everywhere.

Despite the fact that I’m fit and run regularly its becoming apparant that a lot of my muscles must have been laying dormant, hoping that they were going to have an easy ride into middle age.

I think those very muscles are now in shock.

Our evening session at Northwood Stadium in Hanley was our second visit there this week, and our second ever training session for our charity decathlon challenge.

I just ached too much to attempt any speed work, so we settled for something much less strenuous, high jump, javelin and shot putt. Yeah, right!

The track was really quiet when we arrived and with less people around to laugh at our high jump attempts, we decided that was to be our first event of the night. We started off at the incredible height of 1 metre. That was cleared with the good old fashioned scissor kick that we learned at school. The bar moved up to 1.10m with Ed getting over quite comfortably. I followed after another couple of attempts.

1.20 was the next attempted height. Try as I might I couldn’t get over it. Even Internet Ed’s coaching tips weren’t enough to help. I landed on the bar, the bar landed on me. I kicked the bar, the bar kicked back. It doesn’t have any scrapes to tell the tale of our encounter. I do!

I lowered the bar to 1.15m and carried on, my legs getting heavier each time. I skimmed the bar time and time again, and called it quits at 1.10m

Its a start anyway

Ed pushed the height up to 1.20, got over that after a few attempts, then had the same battle with 1.25m as I’d had at 1.15. He cracked it in the end though. 1.30m was too much though, although it did provide a highlight of the evening.

Three kids at the end of the 100m track stood and watched while Ed tried to clear 1.30m. When I say ‘stood and watched’ I actually mean ‘stood there shouting miss….miss….miss!’. Ed duly obliged

In terms of Decathlon points 1.10 is worth 131 points, and 1.25m is worth 218.

Then we got a bit silly. I tried to dive over the bar superman style. Superman I wasn’t. This wasn’t the Fosbury Flop, it was the Day Dive. It was pants!

We also spent some time refining our shot putt and javelin techniques. I think the use of the word refining is probably misleading though. Refining suggests we made improvements. Improve, we did not.

Tiredness had taken its toll, and we called it quits, opting instead for a cup of vending machine hot chocolate brown coloured sweet tasting liquid.

Before we left the track we went to talk to someone about coaching, but this proved a dead end as he was a junior hurdles coach. He did say we were welcome to train with them, but we’re going to look at all our options to try and get an experienced multi-events coach to help us out. We have spoken with a couple of local people who are willing, so we’re going to look to start this week beginning Monday 19th October.

Quotes of the Day

….after we’ve just raised the bar and Ed is getting ready to jump

Ed – “That looks higher”

Marko – “It is higher!”

….after Marko’s 15th attempt to clear 1.15m

Marko – “Just one more go. What would Daley do?”

Ed – “2 metres!”

Whats Next Then?

Ed’s away on business next week, so no more visits to the track for us until he’s back. I need to give my aches and pains a few days to ease, so obviously the fact that I’m going paintballing on Saturday is going to be a massive help.

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