Marching Madness

Although I don’t wish to commit to themes, and I refuse to acknowledge this being a continuation of last month (continuation in that these are both physical-oriented goals. But this month, my commitment is to march like a madman.

For what has likely been ashamedly too long, I have not taken off in a full sprint for any significant distance (here I am saying more than just a few feet; not a quick jump or dash, but a full stride, ass-hauling sprint). So, in the spirit of sending me back to the physical pliability of childhood I am sprinting three times per week this month (~4 weeks in March, so 12 total sprinting sessions). Each session is meant to be done on a track: 1600m total, 300m walk, 100m sprint, repeated four times.

Assuming this is being read in the future: I am aware that the month of March is nearly halfway over… and to that end, I have already completed 5 of the 12 sessions. My first session sent me into an acute fatigue that I may only recall from the nonsensical cardio “workouts” infamous in many organized team sports (essentially coaches cosplaying as Marines forcing their athletes to run/push/jump to complete exhaustion, then demanding more). Not to say this fatigue was unwelcome, very much not so, but this once familiar feeling felt new once again.

As I am not about halfway through the month I can appreciate a few things. One being how little exercise need actually be done to exhaust the body’s adaptive capacity. In a mere ~13 minutes, one can all the nessesary exercise stimulus for the day, albiet a pretty unbalanced meal if actually done daily. Three times a week displaces one of my usual three (minimum) weekly workouts but compliments my athletic endeavors quite nicely. I’ve also realized how my lopsided posture I found while streching manifests itself in more complex movement (like during a sprint). Instead of my torso and glutes stabilizing hip rotation in the proper direction, I can almost feel the energy lost in inefficient hip motion and a loose abdomen.

Perhaps I should’ve been more scientific from the outset, but I think I will time a session or two to plot variance between sessions and perhaps glean a trajectory, but in all honesty it would not shock me if my first 100m were my fastest. Perhaps it’s just residual fatigue or just poor timing of the sessions, but I don’t feel faster by any means. That, however, is not really the point. It’s closer to a novel effort to improve generic atheltic ability, independent of any demands of context.

I haven’t necessarily noticed any sweeping changes in flexibility - for better or worse - only acute fatigue following a session. Until the end of the month, I will continue to subject my adult self to the worst fears of my childhood: first stretching, now running (although distance running was my bogeyman, not sprints).