Thursday 13 November 2008

Bootcamp and blister

I only made it to one of my two Thursday bootcamps today. Yesterday, on my rest day, I managed to get a huge enormous blister on my heel. OK, it was a little one, but it hurt like a huge .. you get the idea.

When I got up this morning I put a bandaid on my heel and taped it. No joy. It still hurt once I put my shoes and socks on. I even tried two pairs of socks. TB, who managed to survive me with blisters at the Queen Vic Markets in Melbourne, suggested that I stay home. As it was meant to be a cardio session, I decided that I would take his advice. Of course, it was a scavenger hunt, which is one of my absolute favourite sessions. Oh well. Another time.

I nearly left my gear at home however I'd packed it the night before so I took it to work with me. I wasn't feeling at all confident about being able to wear my runners at lunchtime. Two of my workmates were looking for a can of harden up for me. Yep, I was getting lots of sympathy. I decided to try my shoes on about half an hour before bootcamp. To my amazement, I couldn't feel the blister. Now, it may have healed dramatically in the five hours between bootcamps, but I'm giving all the credit to the magic bandaid I put on when I got to work. I invested in some of those "healing" bandaids a few weeks ago. I haven't been at all convinced that they work up until now.

It was 30 degrees today, so we were all wearing our sunscreen and hats. We also made sure we had plenty to drink before we headed outside. It's fun doing this with the people at work as there's a lot of mutual encouragement before and after bootcamp sessions.

We started off with our usual skipping warmup. We seem to be skipping for longer, which has got to be good. We then jumped over the rope for a while. It seemed like quite a while but it was probably only two sessions of one minute.

After that we did some boxing. The person with the pads called a number between 1 and 8, the other person punched that many times and then shuffled around in the direction of the last hand they used. It was a good workout. I'm not sure how long each turn was, but we got to box twice. I was encouraging my partner to hit through the focus mitt instead of aiming for the front of it. She was doing a pretty good job by the end.

We then did the running against the resistance band. That's quite an exercise. We normally run all the laps, but Billy encouraged us to power walk the last lap. He didn't say so, but I think he was paying attention to the heat. We each took two turns at that, then we were back to squats. Phew! Billy loves his squats. I've got to admit, I can stay down longer and go down further now.

What I have noticed, and this has come from running and not stopping, is that I have more stickability with the different exercises now. It's as though I've realised I've got another gear that I can get into, and I can do more for longer no matter what it is I'm doing. When I was powering along with the resistance band I could tell I was in the same headspace as I was when I was running up those hills around Mt Ainslie and it kicked in again when I was struggling to stay down in the squats.

Tomorrow I have PT with Krissi. I so enjoy my weights session with her. I'm in Melbourne on the weekend, so I won't be playing hockey. I'm going to take my running gear down with me and go for a run around Kororoit Creek. That's a plan!

5 comments:

Andrew(ajh) said...

I hate blisters ... and squats too!

Anonymous said...

2 words Friars Balsam, it was a god send for me when I got a massive and I mean MASSIVE blister 4 weeks before Trailwalker.

Pop and drain and then apply the FB twice a day, it will dry out the blister very quickly. It comes in a small bottle on the same shelf as the tea tree and euculypt (sp?) oils, about $4 a bottle.

jojo said...

emjoy the run at kororoit Creek

Kathryn said...

My tip for running with blisters is not to put bandaids on them, cos that just means an extra layer of thickness and more pressing. I use elastoplaster and make like a retaining wall around the blister instead.

Pam said...

Running with blisters. Ouch. You are a star.

Thanks for the sympathy. You have mine too!