Trying Out T3 Training

Yesterday, while I was out doing back-to-school college shopping with the girl child, I came across a pair of Nike Air Zoom Hot Shot shoes. I’ve absolutely loved the Nike Frees and these had the same kind of sole, so I thought, “Huh, I’ll just slip them on to see what they feel like. I don’t need new shoes or anything, but it’ll be fun to try them.”

Holy cow, I fell in love. They were on sale, so I succumbed and bought a pair. Sweet!

I put them on when I went this morning to try out the Thursday morning run workout at T3. I was a little nervous about dropping in, so the new shoes were like magic–at least I’d LOOK cool.

I got there. It turns out I was it, the lone person to show up for the T3 workout. Talk about intimidating! So I basically had a 1.5 hour one-on-one training session with Chrissie Novak. Whoa. [If you’ll remember back to last September, I’d been a bit scared of her–yes, I’m saying it–on deck, but once my daughter pointed out how focused she was and I had the opportunity to train with her, I realized I quite liked her coaching style. And I wasn’t too scared anymore).]

The first 30 minutes were core, which I desperately need. Jump rope drills showed just how imbalanced my legs are in both strength and coordination (I KNEW this but had never had it demonstrated quite so graphically). Some pikes with the balance ball showed that, well, I have no strength there. Then, we took off running, warming up and incorporating the drills into the running.

We hit the first hill for repeats. It was a block-long gradual hill and it felt good in a somewhat painful way to push the pace. Of course, I had to because Novak was running every step of the way with me, timing. No opportunity to slack here!

Active recovery inbetween all six repeats. Then, easy jog on down the road to the next hill, another block long hill but a somewhat steeper grade. Two repeats, and then we headed back…but it wasn’t easy…I was to hit each of the hills pushing the same pace I’d done in the repeats. Yikes!

The goal for the rest of the run was good form and bringing the heart rate back down during the active recovery inbetween and after the hill repeats. We finished up with more drills in the final couple of blocks of running and some stretching.

I sweated buckets (my super new cool shoes feel like I waded in the creek) and worked very hard. I feel really good right now. The workout made me quite happy.

So, while I loved the one-on-one with Novak, who clearly motivates me, this is not the group workout I’d hoped it would be. I’m going to check it out again next week before deciding whether to sign up.