My second challenge: How it began…
Every start to a New Year begins similarly. Is your life standing still? Why don’t you challenge yourself to make the best out of it?
You are glad that you have finished another year with all its ups and downs; you are also looking forward to the new one with a few holidays already in mind. Oh and there are the obligatory, never-changing New Year’s Resolutions! For some reason (I just realised) my resolutions are the same ones every year:
– Being more active.
– A healthy diet/ lose some weight.
– No alcohol until my birthday (31.1).
Having said that, it looks rather like there wasn’t much of a big challenge in there, I’ll have to change that for 2013…
If someone told me a couple of months ago that I would compete in an Ultra Marathon or go to the Jungle, I would never believe it; I’m sporty but I’ve never really been a runner. And now it’s actually happening, I’m going to the Jungle Marathon 2012 in Brazil.
Everyone around me might think I am nuts but I’m telling you that these things can happen to anyone if you just let them! Opportunities in life appear once in a while and if you see one in front of you shouldn’t be afraid to just go for it – so I did!
I was training regularly in my gym close to work when a new class came up called “Jungle Marathon”. The gym “The Third Space” is great and offers nearly everything you can imagine, so I attended Climbing, Pole Strengthening, TRX and Park Fitness classes. Adding a new class was great; I thought I might get myself into a good shape for the beach in Greece later on this year. The new “Jungle Marathon” class is different. The training is about building up muscle stamina for the actual Jungle Marathon in the Amazonas, Brazil. It also includes information and techniques, for example how to react in specific situations like crossing a river with your rucksack or how to use a compass, all taught by the personal trainer John Stratford who spent 14 years in the Royal Marines http://www.commandoactive.com/. Jon’s qualification seems to be ideal for teaching this class. Apart from hard training (Level 3, “Boot Camp” style) I sometimes felt like back at school when the theoretical part was on. But that aspect made it more interesting and different to other classes, so I kept on going.
Imagine: wading through this river with your rucksack
Every class was different each time and varied between circuit training with or without climbing elements, pool sessions and sometimes outdoor training in Regions Park/Primrose Hill on weekends.
Flo attended the Jungle Marathon training from day 1 and is writing a blog about her training for the big day in the Jungle.
The training was great and I felt the progress very quickly. My muscles built up, felt tighter and my arms were stronger. On top of the positive effect that it had on my body shape I had lots of fun and met lovely people. But that’s not all…
The Jungle Marathon 2012 is sponsored by the brand UVU to win a spot with all expenses paid in the race beginning of October 2012. The competition will be taking part in my gym so I was even more motivated to train for it.
Keeping in mind that I only started the intense training in July while other gym members have experienced Triathlons etc, I have to face the competition very realistically and just give it my best.
My personal training plan was like so:
Monday: 7:30 am Jungle training
Tuesday: 7:30 am run to work (during the Olympics) or Interval Training, lunch time TRX
Wednesday: lunch time Climbing Class, after work Park Fitness
Thursday: after work Jungle training
Friday: lunchtime Pole Strengthening
Saturday: rest day
Sunday: long Run
… I started to feel addicted by realising that I felt bad when I was not training. Amazing the motivation I had to wake up 6:30 am to go to the gym or run to work. I thought about the Amazonas all the time picturing me crossing rivers and sleeping in a hammock with spiders and mosquitoes around me. I love nature and already had the best time of my life travelling around Australia.
Ready to run to work at 7:00 am.
Feeling fantastic while training and having the beautiful Jungle in mind I can’t stop thinking that I am able to do the race. I want the challenge, I want the race.
Life is a challenge! The experience counts!