Topic: Kria's training journal

[Kria]

2/15/11
Didn't really do anything today. On thursday we'll be in Winter Park, so I think for tomorrow it'll be nothing too. I don't see any point in climbing higher out of my rut right now, since I'll be diving back into it for possibly the last real time this weekend.
I'm hoping to maybe find some cool rails and stuff over there, like I did in Aspen, but I'm really going to try and not make parkour a part of this trip. It just messes with my mental game for skiing too much because of the two totally different attitudes, and even though I'm tired of the live-to-win thing I still really, REALLY want that junior olympic team jacket, just once. I can act as reformed and self-rightous as i want, but deep down I still want this last victory so, so much. But I've decided to keep trying to tell myself that if I don't make it, it's not a big deal anymore. I'm sick of stressing over it, and now I have somewhere to move on to
But either way, after this I'm free! I'll have enough time and little enough interference to kick up parkour training to every day, organized routine sort of thing. I'm thinking two or so different workouts for conditioning to alternate with, maybe not every day but close (one each day then a rest) and as much technique training as I can find. Lack of places to train or access to them is still a pain in my ass right now.
Also expanding on vaulting- I want to start learning some different techniques like monkeys and how to get over higher things, especially chainlink fences. We have a lot of those around.

EDIT: woah, journal has hit page 2 good omen, I think.

[Kria]

2/16/11
yea, I failed at trying to purposly take an off day xD Ran QM around the house for a full, hard 10 minutes (a lot more work than i thought it would be, usually I stop and do other stuff, but it's a serious workout when you don't stop lol). I especially did a lot of ground kongs- I want to do vault kongs next. I did get a few very good ones over the couch; once I got a while pile of momentum and nearly went headfirst into the dinner table xD
I think this'll wind up as one of my favorite vaults, the moment on the exit where you're just hanging in midair and arms push out behind you feels like flying
It might be partly because the couch is just short so I'm closer to the ground anyway, but I seem to land the kongs almost on all fours (like my hands always tap the ground). Probably just need to uncurl my legs faster, but at least it feels like my hips are getting up pretty well.
I also failed miserably at the idea of giving up parkour for the weekend, hehe. If I find a good set of railings or walls (I still dream about that hotel staircase setup in Aspen xD), or any kind of training opportunity, actually, you can bet I'll take it, ski race or not.

[Kria]

2/17- 21/11
Winter park. it was a great race and I actually had a lot of fun I think that spending so much time with a non-competitive discipline has toned me down already- I wasn't thinking about beating other racers, I was thinking about beating myself and having some of my best runs ever, which I did. Not acting like a skier makes skiing a lot more relaxed xD
I saw a ton of great parkour places there (winter park(our), hehe) but it was really snowy and a lot of the things I saw that could be done were a bit out of my legue xD I was too chicken to vault much in the crouded village in my full skiing gear (already almost faceplanted thanks to that once) but did get a good lazy vault over a handicapped railing in.

2/22-24/11
track season has officially begun, and I don't think I'll survive adding much of my own conditioning. two and a half practices and I'm officially whipped xD Since all of our sprinters are also being trained as hurdlers, we're doing a lot of goofy reindeer-esque leaping drills and work on recovery muscles... apparently it's a muscle group in your front thigh and up past the hip that lifts your leg up when your hip is bent more than 90*, like if you're jumping a hurdle or making a crane landing, coming in for a cat leap, tucking for a roll, flip, kong, or prescision... the uses for this seem endless. and also, apparently, my recovery muscles aren't especially strong yet xD I hit muscle failure point on one of the drills and got stuck balancing on one leg with my ankle resting on the hurdle but unable to lift my foot up xD
majorly sore for the past few days, but in a good way. Any non-teqnique work I do on my own is prolly going to be upper body- core, legs, coordination, and speed are covered by track right now and more than enough for me to handle lol.

[Kria]

2/25-3/3/11
moar track! we've started real paced workouts, which are hard, and jumping. We have a little team so everyone is learning how to do almost everything- sprinter, hurdler, relayer, long and triple jumper, and I bet the coach will try to get me into pole vault too. the issue with that will be mah weak leetle arms... which are getting better, but still. I've started the +10 pushups for every post ( +5 more for each of those edits I make) partially as a reason to do more pushups, half-climb ups on the bed are still hard but not as bad, and I really want to try and get a door-frame pull-up bar to work on those.

3/4/11
partially by accident, I got an unusual workout today. I wanted to go get something from town that I needed, but due to my frustrating lack of legal driving ability, I took my bike. That's pretty normal for me, in the summer. So 5 miles of downhill there, and 5 miles of uphill back, but in between the two I went to the park and did some pull-ups and vaulting over a bench. Mostly 2-handed, since I haven't vaulted that kind of bench before, but next time I want to try and learn to kong them. I would have stayed longer, but these big dark clouds rolled in and I wound up riding 4 or so of those uphill miles in a full-on blizzard. not fun.

+10

[Kria]

3/5/11
Started working on ambedextrious-ifying (most certainly not a word, let alone one that I can spell) my lazy vaults. It was awkward and hard with the left at first but got a lot smoother. Still not quite as comfortable as on the right, but getting there. Unfortuantly I might not be training much for a while- ankle issues seem to be coming back in my left foot. Landing all of the vaults and taking off for right-handed lazys wasn't kind to it. Crap.

3/7-3/9/11
Sort of track. Short but intense core work on monday, pace workout that felt ok-ish on my ankle tuesday, and easy but crappy all around workout wednesday because my ankle hurt bad. I talked to my track coach about it and he said to skip any jumping or pounding on it (hurdle and box jumping warm ups killed it) and take it easy. Sprinting seems to loosen it up and help it, since the fball of my foot hits first and it springs back fast, not a lot of time actually touching the ground. Hopefully I can take good care of it and get the ankle back to 100% as soon as I can. New, non-worn out shoes might help-getting those asap.

[Kria]

3/10-3/12
sicker than crap. getting out in the air for a few lazys helped clear my head some, but I mostly stayed in.

3/13/11
Feeling way better. skied for a few hours before lunch and then hung out with some friends and vaulted random stuff around town. The same little wall and railing that I could barely clear on that first visit way back in january were easy Also rolled a few times in the park on the (dead) grass (dodging deer poo, of course  ) and vaulted that same park bench, once with my freind laying on it so i could fly over the top of her- fun little stunt lol. also experimented with getting over the matching set of picnic tables. I tried to get my friends to try a few lazys but they were convinced that they were gonna eat concrete xD

[Kria]

4/10/11
good gosh, it's been forever since I've posted here... BUT I've been training like crazy in the form of track. I'm getting much better at pole vault and actually competing at hurdles, and faster all around. Ankle isn't getting worse, but not really getting better either. I've started icing and taking care of it more and more and hopefully it'll help it heal up, or at least not worsen until track's over and I can rest it for a longer time.
I don't have much parkour specific training going on, but I have been getting to practice lazy and two handed vaults now and then- they're invaluable for just getting around faster. (hmm... do i go down some stairs, around to the side of the bleachers, up more stairs and back around to get to the bleachers, or just go over the railing? tough choice, haha)
Parkour training will probably be sparse for a while longer, but I haven't disappeared or anything

[Kria]

6/16/11
I'm baaaaaaack!!!
Been crazy busy and distracted these last few months and haven't trained anything but running much, or really at all until yesterday. I'm on a little vacation to a bigger city and I've been finding all kinds of cool places to play.
Something I've learned recently and gotten pretty good at is getting over bigger walls with what i guess would be called a pop vault. I can clear walls up to about 5ft now, and its really cool just to know that i can- unlocks new possibilities when i look at a place. I've played around a little with one even taller wall (6-7ft maybe) and most of the time I can reach the top with my hands- just can't pull myself up or hang on for very long.
Time to get serious about upper body strength and turning these into wall runs, methinks.