Hillbounding 10 Bloodthirsty Bounding Sept.21

NEW EDIT - Photo's at http://www.flickr.com/photos/incomp/?saved=1 up now.

The 1st bounding session of the year started with 35 folks taking on the hill 24 times or so in a soft start with much emphasis on the technical aspects and a little housekeeping as to the protocol we follow. Despite the lower intensity and a reduced workload many in the group were liberally soaked in sweat, no doubt brought on by a combination of warm temps (71F), humidity and the 1.3 million mosquito's that found the hill home tonight.

There is good news and bad but more good. The good news is that technically the minutes we spent outlining the efforts paid off as we are way ahead of the jumping off point last year. There was less running than in the past, that is a core concept as we are not training to run, that would be a totally different workout. The "relaxed" pace made it easy to maintain composure and certain items like staying in Dorsiflexion and running (jogging) the knoll were evident. Here are some goals for next week.

• Faster Turn-around. More recovery in less time. In most sports that is the name of the game. We did OK but there is room to improve.


• Pole orientation. Note that what we do is to simulate skiing. We are in essence "acting" and the hand/arm actions would not have won an Emmy


• Balance. This is a great time to exaggerate that weight shift/weight transfer movement. Balance is learned...not inherent and balance when tired needs to be trained for.


• BREATH, breathe more, breathe harder, breathe like bull. It is hard enough, holding your breathe does not help.


• Find the rock. I know it's there somewhere.

I am working on downloading some photo's but my camera is smarter than me (does not take much)Look at some of the photo's, you will find them on Flikr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/incomp/ and I will edit in the link to them as I get them in. Note a lot of "sitting back" postures, will will talk about that. Sitting back is a most grievous of technical mistakes but is reasonably easy to get rid of. Soon you may be feeling a little DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness)... don't call me. Get hydrated and go for an easy ride, swim or brisk hike to recover. When things ramp up you will have to treat this as a race like effort. Hopefully it will cool down soon and millions of skeeters will die a lingering death (bitter). Remember that on a bike you subtract 15F from the actual temp, running you add 15F, XC skiing you add 20F and Hillbounding adds 30F, dress light, dress right.

Very nice to see the enthusiasm and the large number of folks, this is the toughest workout in town so well done, most won't do it you will be better for it. We start the warm up and briefing at 5:28pm next week. We go regardless of weather and the lights will be on and as always, never leave your house without ski poles after Oct.1st