This week I officially started my training for The Monarch Ultra (after my injury) with my coach. So, we went to a park, which also acts as a nursery. The park has a small circuit and halls to run and walk. When not training, it’s a great place to spend a day with all the trees and plants inside Mexico city.
I started my workout by warming up, to prepare the body for hard work. I focused on active stretching while slow jogging short distances and repeating everything from the start several times until the body temperature increased.
Exercises
My exercises were focused on strengthening my legs and glutes. Excercises consists of: squats, reverse lunges, tip toes, calves, resistance band running technique, functional exercises, row, abs, woodcutter, among others, and shorts drills.
It is important to be as perfect as you can in your technique to prevent injuries. This ensures to get the workout right from the very beginning, to be strong with the right muscles in the right form. Coordination is another challenge: I need to do what the exercise is like instead of what mind, body, experience feels like. I need to relearn the correct form, and not the comfort zone, the easy way. Doing everything with biomechanics with 90° angled, knees, straightened back, shoulders, squared hips, etc.
Cooling Down
Cooling down is also a nice ritual which currently takes the longest of the workout. I now use a foam roll before stretching every single muscle of my body. I start with my calves, each leg individually, my thighs, sides and back. After the massage I start stretching to relax. This time I begin with my upper body and end at my lower body. Sometimes I’ll do face gestures for contraction and relaxation.
The Diet
Along with the training I’m now watching my diet so my performance is boosted with high nutrients and superfood. This improves my overall strength. I have to be very careful, a little weight loss relieves the knees. Having extra body weight will slow you down and harm the joints.
Today we are a year away from the Monarch Ultra, enough to be in good form to accomplish my goal. Returning to personal training was such a motivation for my confidence and seeing by myself that I’m on the right track!
Tarahumaras Fans
Would you like to be in an event doing your favorite activity while planting trees?
Alright! We share you running for the planet event created by Tarahumaras Fans. Tarahumaras or Raramuris (light footed) are a Mexican community who live in Chihuahua. They are known specially because of their barefoot and sandals running. Also, they are well known because of the Caballo Blanco race from a best seller book. Tarahumaras fans have many projects and one of them is #runningfortheplanet.
You can sign up the following link: Running for the Planet. Joining is free and they will plant a tree in Brazil, this Sunday, September 20, 2020.
While this event has now passed, you can see our efforts in our post about Running for the Planet here.
