The Treadmill

by klcovansky on 13 January, 2013

One of the main characters in one of my favourite book series owns a pub outside of London called The Treadmill. If ever I fancied to open a pub of my own, that would be the name I’d use myself. It brings to mind a water wheel spinning endlessly in a river flowing lazily along the English countryside. A treadmill is also one of the most evil torturing devices known to man. A rubber band where you can essentially run as fast as you like without moving an inch in any direction. This past week has been full of irregular hours at work, and when it’s pitch black outside in the morning, I sometimes find it easier to get up, have breakfast and head down to the gym to start running, often being asleep for the first 60 minutes. Ran 2,5 hours on the treadmill both Monday and Friday morning before my night shifts, as well as one 90-minute and one 80-minute run on Tuesday and Thursday. Four runs this week with 7 hours 50 minutes and 82 km, making it 158 km in 12 days. Not too shabby with exactly 12 weeks left ’til the race starts! Next week is a killer with 8 hours 10 minutes on the programme before we have a resting week with slightly less hours to run.

Core training

Another thing we’ve started with every single day is core training. We’ve taken our cue from one of our great inspirations, Franco Azzopardi, who lives on Malta and whom we had the great honor of assisting during his tryout to qualify for RAAM (Race Across America) through the Radmarathon in Switzerland two years ago. Franco practices core every morning every day of the year. No. Days. Off. Ever. So far this year, we’ve managed to do the same. Luckily, it’s only January 13.

Side core

If you want to train your core, this is the way to do it. You start out in 60-second cycles, holding every position for 30 seconds. You start out in the basic position pictured by the pretty lady above, moving through the following steps: right arm extended, left arm extended, right leg extended, left leg extended, right arm and left foot extended together, left arm and right foot extended, turn over on your left side as pictured to the left, turn over on your right side, and finally lie on your back and lift up your butt from the floor, resting only on your shoulders and heels. Finally, you do variations of sit ups 3×10 (one of our favourites right here). This will take you 15 minutes, and if you get up earlier every morning to do it, we promise you’ll have a stronger core come Easter.