Andrea's Training Journal!

As nice and relaxing as today was (being a Sunday and my rest day) it’s hard to fully relax knowing that these next 5 and a half weeks are going to be NON-STOP WORK until I leave. I need to make as much money as possible, so I’m going to be working probably 11 hours a day on average, not including training. It’ll be worth it though…money is good. I’m going to try to be as concious as I can of NOT getting burnt out since I’m still going to maintain the training at 6 days a week!
That’s all I have to say for today!

tommorrow…It begins… :eek:

Ahhh…so apparently the forecast was a little off…the storm isn’t acctually going to hit until Wednesday. So all in all today acctually turned out to be VERY relaxing!

Attempted to make it ON TIME for the early bird swim today…but it was one of those mornings where your alarm goes off and it takes you like 15 minutes to figure out why the heck your phone would be ringing at 6 in the morning…then you realize that it’s to wake you up…but then it takes you another 5 minutes to try and remember why you set your alarm in the first place…then I FINALLY figured out that I was supposed to be going swimming…and ended up being late.

By the time I had warmed up in the sauna and stretched and stuff they were already on their 6th lap of water running. After about 3 (13m) laps my right anterior compartment started acting up, which is unusual during swimming, usually that’s what helps it the most. This was the first time it’s hurt in a long while. So after 4 or 6 laps I decided to move on and try swimming, which didn’t hurt nearly as much. Did about 20-25 X 25m laps and by the end I was pretty toasted. Hit the hot tub for about 10 minutes and did lots of calf stretches to try and get the swelling down.

Since we were going to be swimming for so long today I decided it was time that I acctually buy some goggles so that I don’t need to worry about running down any seniors, or much worse, getting run down BY seniors. Being the cheapo that I am I wanted to buy the cheapest pair they have, which of course is the kids (hot pink Speedo…suites me just fine!).

Haha…anyways…Did abs after swimming - 2 X 7 exercises X 30 seconds.
Hit the contrast shower for a good 15 minutes. Both before and after this I could acctually feel the pressure building up in my legs no matter what I was doing. It wasn’t really painful, it just worried me alot cause it’s never felt like that before so once I got back to normal temperature, I massaged my lower legs a bit to get some of the junk flowing out of there, that helped a lot and they didn’t bother me for the rest of the day.

Met with my technical shooting coach today (for lack of a better name) and tried to arrange some times to get together…didn’t get far with that, still have no idea when…oh well

Went to the tennis courts by my house to work on the dribbling, needless to say I got plenty of weird looks from the tennis players…and despite their best efforts to scare me away with all their making out…I was persistant and soon enough had all 4 courts to myself! :smiley:

Spent a good hour there I’d say, it was REALLY hot out so I didn’t do too many full paced drills.
When I finally started to be taken over by tennis players I spooked off and went to the beach for like an hour. The cold water felt really good on my legs. Then I went home and had another contrast shower and ate dinner.

Awesome day! Although I did get made fun of a fair bit, so feel free to join in…

basketball nerd!

All I can say to that…is I would LOVE to see you say it to my face!!! :smiley: …punk

Anyways…tooo tired to post the awesome workout we had today…I’ll add it tommorrow morning though!

This could be a long entry…

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Started out with weights at around 1:30, no pain or noreness at all. 5 minutes on the bike and some stretching with and without the bar (as usual).

Hang Cleans
5 X 15kg
5 X 25kg
5 X 32.5kg
5 X 37.5kg
5 X 42.5kg (PB!!)
2 X 5 X 35kg
Clean Shrugs (from ground)
2 X 5 X 35kg
2 X 5 X 45kg
5 X 50kg
5 X 55kg
Squats
5 X 15kg
5 X 35kg
5 X 40kg
5 X 45kg
5 X 50kg (PB!!)
2 X 8 X 35kg
Even though it was less weight than I’ve done before…the 45kg set felt ridiculously heavy today! Once I stepped up to the 50 it felt fine though ! The power of the mind hey…

Anyways…speed/power training afterwards at 3:30
Did the usual warmup…way too tired to type it all out! (5 X 100m tempos and 5 X 100m accels)

5 X 40m full speed and hold for last 20m
alternating 5 and 10 minute rests.
The first one of these felt horrible…like I hadn’t run in months and had forgotten how…
Had to sit out of the 3rd one and get more rest…but apparently came back after that and started kicking some butt! :slight_smile:
The last 2 runs we didn’t hold for 20m at the end…just cut the engines and started decelerating.
Abs

  • 5 X 30reps on my own
  • 10 X 30seconds with the group

Food and Contrast shower!

Wednesday April 26, 2006

8:00-2:30 - Work
3:15 - Massage - Did a lot of strength tests and ankle strengthening exercises, only got like 10 minutes of actual hands on stuff at the end (but it was gold and I wish it could have lasted forever!) so I fell asleep halfway through while she was talking to the instructor. Those massage beds are pretty comfy. :o
4:45 - Work
9:30 - Tempo workout! Ahh short circuit today
(if you’re REALLY interested, either read Smarrs entry…or go find the last short circuit tempo one I posted (it’s somewhere in page one) and then take out the middle row. We went a little bit slower today because we have speed training early tommorrow morning…and we’ve also learned that we should be ending at the same pace as we’re starting with. So it felt a lot better today I must say, my asthma didn’t bother me at all!
A little bit of abs when we finished running, just 4 easy exercises and that was it!

Anyways…bed time!
G’night!

This is the pic just before you took off and started to fly.

Wow…I guarantee I didn’t look like THAT 2 months ago!!! :cool: I owe it all to you Herb, THANK YOU!!! :smiley:

Thursday April 27, 2006

9:00 am training today! :slight_smile:
Started with the usual warm up - 2 laps jog (bare feet, lots of stretching, 5 X 100m tempos, 5 X 100m accels (about 3 minutes rest), active stretching and mach drills.
3 X 30m sprints (fast, faster and fastest)
6 X 20m hill sprints (see picture above!)
both with lots of rest in between

Lower right calf (sort of on the inside but at the back… :confused: that’s the best description I can give) was giving me quite a bit of grief after about the second accel. Massaged it and stretched it quite a bit but was remaining about the same or getting a little bit worse as we went.

Abs - 7 X 30reps
stretching (oops…forgot to cool down on the bike…)
2 minute cold shower (didn’t have time for a contrast)
Pasta salad then home for more food and off to work for about 7 hours.
The lifting was a bit more difficult today at work than yesterday (heavier boards) so my back was bugging me a bit but I was really trying to focus on keeping my form as much as possible. I’m sure I’ll feel fine after a contrast shower and maybe I can sucker my mom into giving me a massage since injured employees are quite unproductive! :smiley:

Anyways…it’s been another LOOONG day and another early morning tommorrow, so good night!

from the looks of it, andrea may be able to fly next year. Good job on the sprint. It looks pretty wicked which is why I am admiring the form.

yup, your form looks so good you have to give some credit to the photographer, and the owner of the camera…those guys rock:D what would you do without them?

Thanks boys. And ya, I don’t exactly know what I would do without you guys. Training in Europe just won’t be the same with out my photographers around! :wink:

Anyways…just had the absolute worst day at work that I’ve had since I started there (over a year ago)…and just am not in any kind of mood to past yesterday’s or today’s workouts…I’ll do it tommorrow though…always tommorrow! :frowning:

Hope your day was better than mine. :slight_smile:

Sorry to disappoint everyone who’s been looking forward to hearing about everything I’ve been doing in the past few days, I know it’s probably the highlight of your day, but it’s late now and I forgot my training journal out in the car and there’s just no way I’m going back out there! Sorry. I will get it all posted soon though!

I’m glad to report that today was a MUCH better day than yesterday! All went well! :slight_smile:

Good night !

Hello Andrea

Welcome to the site, I’m glad to see you are making use of the journals. Hope to see more in the future, keep up the good work!

Rupert
CharlieFrancis.com

Thank you Rupert! :o

Okay, so everyone can take a deep breath now and enjoy reading about my last couple of days…sorry to keep the anticipation so high! :smiley:

Friday April 28, 2006

Just weights today…no abs or tempo…I’ve been slacking on the abs the last 2 days!

HANG CLEANS
5 X 15kg
5 X 25kg
5 X 32.5kg
5 X 35kg
3 X 5 X 40kg
This was my worst day for cleans since I can remember, my technique was horribly off for some reason, the bar was getting away from me and the movements were just all around slow and powerless. :mad:

SHURGS
5 X 45kg
5 X 50kg
5 X 55kg
3 X 5 X 60kg (PB!)

SQUATS
5 X 15kg
5 X 30kg
5 X 20kg
5 X 47.5kg
5 X 52.5kg (PB!)
2 X 5 X 40kg

The shrugs and squats felt much better than the cleans so I dunno what it was!

Saturday April 29, 2006
Speed work!

Warm up
[ul]
[li]2 laps bare feet
[/li][li]Stretching
[/li][li]5 X 100m tempos
[/li][li]2 X 60m accels
[/li][/ul]

2 X 30m (First one at 90% intensity and second at 95%)
3 X 40m (97% intensity)
3-4 minutes rest between runs
2 X 60m (full speed and acceleration up to 30m then holding for the last 30m)
5 minutes rest between
The first one was very slow and unintense…but after a little reality check that I’ve been able to run these in under a SECOND faster :eek: …I smartened up for the last 2!
8 minutes rest and then did one more of the same thing
I was stomping a lot today. It may have been some subconcious fear because of the wet field (sprinklers were on). But who knows…it got better as the practice went on.

Had to leave early for work so again got no abs done! :frowning:
Cool down
[ul]
[li]Jog 2 laps bare feet
[/li][li]Streching
[/li][li]3 minute COLD shower
[/li][li]Foot right after practice (banana, carrots and protein bar)
[/li][/ul]

So there we go, everyone can sleep a little easier tonight! :stuck_out_tongue:

So I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was pray that it would rain…and thank God he heard me…so I didn’t have to work !! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

Went through several phases of feeling lazy, like I have been the last few days, acctually everything has been pretty up and down. My temperature has been fluctuating like CRAZY this has been going on for like a week now…and I’m also going through random spurts of extreme tiredness where I’m like to the point if I were to lean against a wall I would be out cold for a good hour and my appetite has been up and down as well, insane cravings one minute and sometimes not even hungry for hours at a time. I love being a girl. :rolleyes:

Anyways, I forced myself to buckle down and get back into everything (ie. Abs and dribbling)
Did an ab session in the afternoon - 7 X 30 reps with about 30 seconds in between, did all of these without a med ball or b-ball cause I was again too lazy to go out to the car and get it!
Tempo workout in the rain…attempted to do this barefoot…but after walking across the gravel parking lot and touching the freezing cold grass I turned around and changed my mind, then had to wash my feet in a mud puddle and put my shoes back on. I’m so bright :cool: Anyways…did the short circuit today which is…
1+1+1^
1+2+1+1^
1+2+2+1^
1+1+2+1^
1+1+1

1 = 100m run 2 = 200m run

  • = 50m walk ^ = 100m walk

Did the same ab session again when I got home (overly motivated at this point) and then did about 15 minutes of dribbling. Going to practice some power cleans before bed with the old broom handle :stuck_out_tongue:

Goodnight all!

Tuesday May 2, 2006

Weightlifting! We were slightly pressed for time today so it was a pretty light session today.

CLEANS

5 X 15kg
5 X 25kg
5 X 32.5kg
4 X (5 X 40kg)
I don’t know what’s wrong with me but my cleans have been getting worse and worse. It’s so frustrating! :mad:
DEAD LIFTS
5 X 50kg
5 X 55kg
3 X (5 X 60kg)
SQUATS
5 X 35kg
2 X (5 X 40kg)

Speed Session!
Was a few minutes late so I missed the jogging and stretching but I joined in for tempos…
5 X 60m tempos (apparently we’ve been doing 60m this whole time, not 100m, but I like to lie a lot! :stuck_out_tongue: )
3 X 60m accels

3 X 30m sprints - Fast (90%), Faster (95%) and Fastest (100%)
2 X {4 X 60m} 100% up to 40m then holding for the last 20m - Except I forgot to hold it everytime - ooops
4-5 minutes rest between runs and 10 minutes between sets

Abs
About 10 exercises for 40 seconds with 40 seconds rest
Plyos
12 X Single EXPLOSIVE jump onto the mat
10 X One hop then EXPLOSIVE jump onto mat

Did a bit of a dribbling and had a 5 minute cold shower and ate some food ! :slight_smile:

OR you are at the point where Guy thinks you can handle more input and corrections to your technique. You are progressing so that now Guy can work on the finer details of which there are bazillions. One of my Karate instructors told me that the reason the other instructors were so tough on me is because they saw a lot of potential in me. Don’t fret sunflower, your technique is improving a tonn and you are getting way way stronger, and quite a bit faster. Keep up the good work.

Thank you Herb, you always have those awesome little pick-me-ups right when I need them! :slight_smile:
I’m going to be visualizing power cleans all night tonight and then kick ass when I do weights tommorrow! Except you won’t be around to witness it, but I promise it will be a show!!

Wednesday May 3, 2006
I forgot to mention that I was really dehydrated yesterday so I’ve been drinking lots of water today to get back up there but I’m still feeling pretty thirsty and I know that’s an obvious sign that I’m really far gone. :eek:
Anyhoo…
Had my first shooting session with Keeley (shooting coach) today.
Basically since season has been over I haven’t shot a ball once. (until yesterday when I missed 2 open right handed layups :o ) I knew I was going to be working with Keeley and I figured since I was going to be adjusting my shot anyways I didn’t want to ingrain my old habits even worse. So when I got to the gym he had me warm up just doing some light really close shooting. Then I moved out and worked my way around the key. It took about 7 shots to get around and I sure didn’t hit a single one!!
So then he looks at me and says one little thing (and I know Herb is gonna nag me for this even more now) “Keep your knees from buckling in when you jump.” So I forced myself to do that my second time around…and guess what…7 straight SWISH. He’s amazing ! :smiley:
So ya. Worked on the shooting for about an hour then did about 15 minutes of dribbling and headed home for abs (6 X 40reps with about 40 seconds in between)
Tempo run later in the afternoon…
100’s circuit, plus my own little invention at the end cause I had some extra time and LOTS of extra energy…
100’s circuit = (1~) X 10
where 1 = 100m run
and ~ = 10 pushups or 30 sit-ups (I alternated each time)
Then I just did 1+1+2+1+1

  • = 50m walk 1 and 2 = 100m and 200m run
    For a grand total of 1600m
    Plus 2 laps light jogging to warm up and one more lap at the end to cool down, and a fair bit of stretching before and after.
    No discomfort whatsoever to speak of!

Massage right after. Did some tests on the IT Band and mostly worked on loosening those up today with a little bit of work in the anterior legs as well. Felt really good afterwards. A little bit of pressure build up later that day at work but after walking around for a while it dissipated.

And that’s about it for today. Had JIGS DINNER for supper tonight…so if there are any other Newfies on this site I’m sure they’re drooling right now! :stuck_out_tongue:

So I’ve decided to start doing my dribbling/shooting for an hour before we start training. This way I have access to a real gym and don’t have to drive for 45 minutes just for that! I’ve also decided to just pick ONE move per day (inside outs today) for dribbling and only focus on that because I have been feeling kind
of overwhelmed when I get out on the court cause there’s so many moves I COULD work on. This has been very productive so far! Shooting went really well, worked a fair bit with my left hand and I see major improvements already.
Anyways…Training was at 9 this morning so I was in the gym at about 8:10. Then went out and hit the field
Usual warm up…don’t feel like typing it all out.
I had a major breakthrough today though…I finally understand whats supposed to be going on with my feet. I’ve been puling my toes up all this time and then I’m landing on my heels so I started forcing off my toes and it’s AMAZING how much more power you create. Now all I need to do is not think about it and focus on SPEED!
3 X 30m (90%, 95%, and 100%)
4 X 60m (easy for the first 20m, full speed for next 20m and cut engines and easy again for the last 20m)
5 minutes rest
2 X 60m (full speed/acceleration for 40m then hold for last 20m - acctually remembered to hold it today! :smiley: )
2 X 60m (accelerate for the first 40m then full speed for last 20m)

ABS - 6 X 40 reps (lots of rest…stomach wasn’t feeling very good…no matter how hungry I get from now on I’m definitly not having any meal replacement drinks until AFTER!!!)

WEIGHTS

CLEANS
5 X 15kg
5 X 25kg
5 X 30kg
5 X 35kg
5 X 40kg
5 X 42.5kg
3 X (5 X 35kg) - with hook grip
They were feeling much better today that’s for sure. Still have to focus on keeping the bar close, it’s getting away from me about halfway up my thigh and leaving me on my toes but I certainly had a few good sets in there! :slight_smile:
DEAD LIFT SHRUG
2 X (5 X 50kg)
5 X 55kg
5 X 60kg
5 X 65kg (PB!)
SQUATS
5 X 35kg
5 X 45kg
5 X 50kg
5 X 55kg
5 X 60kg (PB!)
2 X (5 X 50kg)
SHOULDER PRESS
5 X 15kg
5 X 17.5kg
5 X 20kg

All in all I ended up training from 8-2…6 hours…a little nuts I must admit. :eek:

Forgot to cool down and stretch after working out but I did have a really good post workout meal. And I forced myself to go without air conditioning on the way home so that I would stay warm until I could stretch.
Drank lots of water today. I was out in the sun for another 4 hours working afterwards. Had to lift SOOO many heavy boards and by the time I had to shut down the house I was so exhausted I could hardly get everything back in the garage , but everyone else had already left so I had no choice and no help! It all worked out though! :stuck_out_tongue:
Then I got home, probably the most tired I’ve been in months and I got called in to close AGAIN tonight…but I told them I wasn’t coming until 8:30 (cause I didn’t want to deal with the dinner rush :slight_smile: ) and they had no choice but to let me, AGAIN (did the same thing last night!). So ya…got off pretty early and it only ended up being a 2 hour shift so it wasn’t too bad after all! now I’m gonna hit the hay and try and get in at least 6 hours sleep before work tommorrow at 7!! Should be a fun one again tommorrow!!!

Quads have been feeling pretty sore. Had a good contrast shower before work and that helped a bit. I’ll ice them tommorrow if I get a chance and have a good contrast shower in the morning as well. I ate REALLY well today by the way…so I’m going to be keeping that up. It’s a good excuse to start! Mmmmmmmmmm…pan fried wild Atlantic Cod…almost as good as acctually being home! :rolleyes:

Ughhhh…I knew this was coming soon. 6 hours of sleep is just NOT enough to maintain an athlete who’s working 2 jobs! Physically, emotionally and spiritually EXHAUSTED! I need to start praying more…
Started painting this morning at 7, then had to race home and head to Boston Pizza.
I’ve been really sore today, shoulders, quads, hams, back…you name it. I haven’t been taking care of myself like I should. Contrast showers have been rushed and I’ve been working off 6 hours sleep each night for over a week now. Luckily I got off early tonight and I’m going to get a really good rest and hopefully fit in a cold bath so I’ll be refreshed for training tommorrow.

Forced myself to go for a tempo run today in between shifts because I knew it would help me feel better later. Besides the fact I EASILY could have fallen asleep on the field while we were stretching, it went pretty well. Did a really short routine (1400m) and at a pretty slow pace. Didn’t want to push my body too far beyond it’s limits.
Definitly NO ABS today.
I’ve been drinking lots of water today. But my throat is feeling really dry and voice is getting week. Could just be that I don’t have the energy to shout anymore. Haven’t taken my vitamins yet today, :eek: I’ll go do that now along with lots of GARLIC. Should be 100% by tommorrow!
So ya…that’s the recovery/regeneration plans for the night. I’ll report back tommorrow and see how much of that I acctually did. But I know of course that sleep is by far the most important.

So today was pretty interesting. I didn’t get as much sleep as I had planned last night. Only about 7 hours, which is still an improvement, but not nearly enough. For some unknown reason I thought that it would be a good idea to get up an hour early and play basketball before training. So on my way to Kelowna I took a caffeine pill cause I started feeling sleepy again. Got out onto the court and started working on some dribbling and had absolutely no control over my motor functioning. Couldn’t even dribble a ball up and down let alone work on any moves. So I went and lay down on the hill by the field and curled up and slept for an hour beofre everyone else got there. :o Although I did get interupted once by the security guard. He was checking to make sure I was okay! haha

So anyways…I was pretty sure right from the get go that Herb was going to cut my practice short. But I was overly determined to last as long as physically possible.
So did the usual warm up and halfway through I was informed it would be a short practice for me and I probably couldn’t go do weights. :frowning: I didn’t like that very much. So I just worked my butt off to prove that I could do it. And it worked. I got to finish the whole practice!

We did…
3 X 30m (fast, faster, fastest)
6 X 30m (flat) then 30m (hill) a minute and a half later. With about 8 minutes between sets.
This session was referred to as VERY special endurance!

I guess I proved myself since I was allowed to go for weights afterwards! :smiley: And ended up having my BEST session yet, according to my coach, but I definitly felt it too!
Started with snatches…which I haven’t done in probably a month or so…and I think I’ve only ever tried them once, maybe twice. It didn’t go very well back then…today I had it down like no other though! Must be from watching Herb’s PERFECT form! :cool:
SNATCHES
5 X 5kg (started really light, didn’t want to have a repeat of the first time I tried them with the 15kg bar and threw it way to far behind my head and nearly ripped my arms off! :o )
5 X 10kg
5 X 15kg
2 X (5 X 20kg) (PB!)
CLEANS5 X 15kg
5 X 25kg
5 X (5 X 35kg) - These sets were absolutly amazing form!!!
SHRUGS (off blocks)
2 X (5 X 50kg)
5 X 55kg
5 X 60kg
5 X 65kg
5 X 70kg (PB!)
SQUATS
5 X 30kg
5 X 40kg
5 X 47.5kg
3 X (5 X 55kg)
My squats were pretty off today, the weight (even though it was lighter than usual) seemed so uch more heavy than it was and I really had to struggle with it. But I made it through “rep by rep”

Did some plyos after weights
4 X (5 X little hops across the ground)
3-4 minutes rest with stretching in between

Headed home (stopped at the b-ball court along the way, don’t ask me why I attempted this again). Shooting got pretty frustrating, I think I was really just SUPER tired and cranky and the fact there was no mesh and the ball kept bouncing away kinda made me wanna cry. But I didn’t and that’s what’s important! Anyways…did abs at home 2 X (5 X 30reps) 20 seconds in between

Thhhennn…The same as I did last night, an ICE BATH for my legs (which worked absolute GOLD by the way) Then about 5 minutes in a nice hot shower and back in the ICE BATH for another 10 minutes. Felt absolutely great afterwards.
Headed to work. Got suckered into closing and didn’t finish until 1:00,it’s now almost 2am and I really need to get some sleep. So GOOD NIGHT!