After my wife finished her 2nd (yes, second) round of Insanity Asylum last week, she had exactly 1 week to train specifically for her first obstacle race.  This weekend the two of us will be racing in the Tennessee Warrior Dash and she is a little anxious simply because she doesn’t train by running (just like I was pre-Beast).  Being the intelligent woman that she is, she asked me for advice and to develop a week-long training schedule that will help her get ready for this Saturday.  I was more than happy to oblige and so the first thing I wanted to get her accustomed to was hill sprints.  Obstacle race designers love to have people run up hills and repeated hill sprints are a good way to prepare for those.  Saturday morning bright and early, her training began.  I sent her out on a 2-mile warm-up run while I started some workouts of my own.  After she returned I gave her the instructions to sprint to the top of the hill as fast as she could, then catch her breath as she came back down.  Her goal was 10 sets.

I can’t begin to tell you the pleasure that I derived from watching her give it all she had.  Even more pleasurable was the fact that I was “allowed” to scream at her in efforts to increase motivation.  Trust me when I say that screaming at her is normally very much frowned upon at my house.    “FASTER! FASTER! FASTER!” I yelled as she took off up the hill.  This was her very first hill sprint and she was not liking it too much at first.  I had to explain that these were to be done at “puke speed”.  Her comments about it prompted another reply from me.  I said “I’m in Honey Badger mode and guess what that means?“.  She correctly answered with “yeah, I know.  Honey Badger don’t care!”  She is not some recently-converted couch potato, but someone who has hung with me for 2 years through multiple rounds of P90X, P90X+, Insanity, Asylum, etc…  I sent her back up the hill again, and again, and again.  I snapped a few photos while she was at it.  Everytime she bent over to grab her knees, I would start to focus and she would quickly raise back up!  She was not about to appear weak at all.

While she ran, I continued my workout, which consisted of weighted lunges, squats, and honey badger crawls.  One of my neighbors was out sweeping his driveway when I honey badgered it up the hill by his house.  Before I even knew he was there, I heard him exclaim “You’ve been in the communion wine again, haven’t you?!”  It really is hard to explain to sane people why you (a respectable, 40 yr old professional) would even think about doing honey badger crawls in the middle of a street.  After finishing a few sets, I asked my wife how many she had completed and she said “Seven or Eight”.  I replied “Well, it’s seven then”.  After another set or two she said something to the effect that it was almost over.  I yelled back “IT WILL BE OVER WHEN I SAY IT’S OVER!!”  This was sooooo much fun!

After her 10 sprints were finished I gave her the choice of burpees, more hill sprints, or honey badgers.  She chose the honey badgers.  I was so proud!  Another set of neighbors came outside during these workouts and of course the female told me to take it easy on her.  The husband sided with me and added a little bit of his own “encouragement”.  I don’t think it is too far-fetched to envision me running a Spartan-like boot camp one of these days.  I might even pay money to get an hour to train Maurya (MScan’tStandMe) if her own great crossfit trainer would lend her to me!!!  Maybe I could convince her boyfriend to drive her to Kentucky and he could help me “motivate” her!  She would not be allowed to backtalk either of us nor take it out on him afterwards.  After all was said and done, my dear wife was happy and in hindsight enjoyed that workout, which was quite different than anything else she had done in awhile.  Now if I can just talk her into let me training her some more for the Spartan Sprint or my dream for her, the 2012 Vermont Spartan Beast!