The road to Sochi 2014

So after we arrived home in Foothill Ranch, we went to a pool by Sammy's house and I met some people and went in the pool. It was warm but it was so cool outside. The lower temp. has surprised me and caught me off guard so much here. I heard its always sunny and never rains in L.A. Well after the first couple days, it has been cold, overcast and rainy almost all the time though sometimes the clouds break and that deep blue sky comes out. I think its warming up now though.

So. Monday: Beach training in the morning. At a beach near Venice Beach I got my first taste of just how hard this program is that Wilma runs and how much I will have to catch up. I knew i was in trouble when after the "warm up" my legs were already screaming. In a clump on the narrow paved road winding along the beach, we first sat in basic position until Wilma said GO and then sprinted out of it. We did this twice. Then up downs into sprints, then one-legged up downs into sprints. Then dry skating then adding a jump to the dryskating and then the workout began: The turncable, which for those who don't know is basicly just a strong belt about 10ft in radius which goes around two people and one person provides resistence, walking slowly with the other person, as the latter mimicks the skating technique in the turns. This is extremely hard to do right I find and we were to do it for just under 60meters alternating between regular technique and just taking it further to "power". Each partner was to do this twice then go straight away into a jog down the path and wind-up for a sprint up a huge hill which at the base was deep sand. The hill was extremely steep and was around 25 meters long to the top where we were to drop back into a jog down the really steep path and then do the loop five more times. So the belt plus the running was one set and we had to do three sets minus the running the third time. I was only able to go half way and my holding was not very good with the belt and at times i could not see i was so dizzy at the top of the hill. It would be bad at the top but manageable and then after a few seconds a rush of dizziness would hit me. So after that, we moved to the actual sand on the beach. It was deep, fine sand. Then it was suicides. From the start position, explode to the first cone, about 10-15meters away and stop in the start position then explode back. Then do the same to the next cone, doubly spaced awayand there were six cones! After two minute's rest, we did the same. Then we moved further down the beach towards the water and did a twenty minute set of jogging, low-walks and dryskate. Then i rinsed off in the pacific ocean, my first training done.
I won't go into so much detail about every workout but i just wanted to give a picture of how grueling the training is here.