I’m not normally into runs farther than 10 km as I tend to get bored doing the same thing for such a long time. Last weekend, however, Keenvibe attended Mud Masters, an 18 km run bristled with 47 obstacles just outside of Hamburg. And let me tell you this: Those 18km did not bore me in the slightest!
The obstacles covered a decent range of difficulty levels. One of the obstacles was as easy as running up a tiny hill in the forest. Lots of the other obstacles were slight variations of climbing or jumping over bales of hay, wooden walls or scaffolding. However, there were quite a few more interesting ones too:
Now the pictures above may look as though the race was made for tough adrenaline junkies. But really, anyone with a half decent fitness level could have participated.
Beginners can start with the 6km option, well-trained athletes may choose to go for the full marathon distance. We chose 18km as it allowed us to try out all the obstacles without having to repeat any of them.
The race is not about speed and you can skip any of the obstacles if you wish. With some help from others, however, a reasonably fit person should be able to overcome the vast majority of obstacles without too much trouble. Most people show up to enjoy the day after all 😉
Last week, I explained how I got myself ready for the Olympic distance
My swim training paid off. I went from struggling to complete a 50m lane to comfortably swimming 1.5kms. While I was not among the fastest swimmers, it goes to show how quickly even a total beginner can become reasonably good in a new discipline. Really, there aren’t any good excuses as to why one wouldn’t just try a new type of sports.
Eat sufficient amounts of carbohydrates at least on the last couple of days leading up to the competition. I only had a salad the night before. As a result, although I had cycled more than 40kms at a personally challenging pace before, I simply lacked the necessary energy during my second lap of cycling on the day of the event. Salad may be a healthy choice, but it’s not going to give you the energy you need for an event like this. Go for pasta, rice and potatoes instead.
Despite occasional training sessions to improve the transitioning from cycling to running, I still struggled with that transition on the day. My take away from this is to simply incorporate more cross discipline transitions into my training.
Swimming is by far my weakest point. Prior to training for my first triathlon, I would involuntarily swallow a gallon of water on a 50 m lane in the pool and afterwards take at least a couple of minutes to recuperate before attempting the next 50 m lane. With the help of friends, things did get a lot better since then. Working on my front crawl is something, I’ll have to work on after the ITU, though. As covering the entire distance without running out of breath already seemed challenging to me, I decided to stick to breast stroke for the ITU. Here is what I did:
I have never been a big cyclist. In fact, I only bought a cheap racing bike a few weeks prior to the 7 towers triathlon. So, rather than focusing on speed, I simply tried to get comfortable with my bike. Where ever I had to go, I would go there by bike. On the weekends, I would try and go a little farther (up to 50km) whilst keeping a somewhat more ambitious pace. I don’t measure speed, but I would push it just a little outside of my comfort zone. For these longer distances, joining other cyclists helped me stay motivated and ensure I wouldn’t start slacking.
Running has always been my strongest point, so I didn’t feel I had to improve much in that department. One thing I realized in my first triathlon, though, was that I found it incredibly difficult to switch from cycling to running. After my calves almost cramped on the first 200 meters, it probably took me about 2 to 3 slow kilometers until I could finally run at my usual pace. Now to mitigate the effects cycling had on my running, I did two things: