I got to rowing today and people were rolling out the erg machines. I was so sad. It looked so nice outside from my couch, but at the river it was windy and cold and so instead of going out on the water we lined up in a row behind the boat house and ergged for a whole hour. It sucked. But also I did get to focus a little on technique and power, which was good. In the end the rower said that I went 10500 meters, which is a little over 10K! My longest erg ever.
I think I need to do some research on this because I'm clearly not doing it as efficiently as possible - when we finished some of the folks who are really good looked like they were about to die. I was winded, but only in zone 2 for my heart rate.
On Saturday I went to a full day women's parkour workshop which was really good. After warm up we did 2 morning sessions and 2 afternoon sessions, with a talk from a physical therapist about hips right before lunch, and a stretch at the end. One of the morning sessions was learning this coach's approach pattern for things like kongs - she does a step, step, then short step with feet close together, bends her knees and then takes off from two feet. It definitely made sense once you broke it down because it really kept the momentum going and allowed you to control where you were headed. We also did a morning session on handstands and gate vaults. The best part is that we did reverse gate vaults over a softer pad, which to me looked like a back walkover, and I could do them! In the middle of going over you hit a handstand position, which is something I struggle with - who knew that I just needed to approach the handstand from bending over backwards??
The hip session was really interesting - she talked about hip anatomy and we did an exercise at the end for the gluteus medius, which it the muscle that I need to work on the most. You put a band around your knees, stand on one foot, and then reasonably quickly move the other foot to the side, diangly back, straight back, and then next to your other foot and do a calf raise. You do this fast 10 times on each side and then your butt will hurt for 2 days :). Super effective. I'm going to add it into the rotation with clam shells.
After lunch we did swings and climbing. They have two shipping containers at the place where we had the workshop, and at first I didn't think I could climb on either of them. After I tried it out, though, I got on both of them! The first one had a scaffolding next to it to climb on, which was a little scary at first, but ultimately not bad. The second one just had a couple of bars next to it, and ridges that your feet could go into - once coach demoed how to do it I thought I could, and so I did. At first I was worried I couldn't get down, but then once I tried it it turned out to be very easy. Definitely a fun day!
