Happy Holidays everyone!
<<Tipirneni Electronic Card 2009.jpg>>
<<Tipirneni Electronic Card 2009.jpg>>
About two years ago, a friend of mine from college asked me if I'd be interested in a half Ironman triathlon relay where I would do the run. At the time, the triathlon was a year away so I said that I would do it - thinking that there was plenty of time to train.
Six months before the triathalon, I got a call from my buddy and he said I think we have a chance of winning this thing.
Win!!!! What! No!
I’m hoping to Finish!
The image of my running ability in college persisted 20 years later. 20 years is a loooooong time.
He explained that in our age class we had a chance - if I could get to a 7:15 mile pace we could probably take the whole thing.
I initially thought the big difference in training now unlike college is that there just isn't enough time to do proper and extensive training given all of life’s time commitments.
The big difference is about time – but about recovery time not exercise time. The problem is the amount of time it takes to recover from training sessions. It now takes days to fully recover from workouts.
Training is about continually pushing your peak then recovering. Thus, increased recovery time means much longer to get in shape.
Replacing Youth with Deliberateness
This is the key for something as full body and intense as Parkour. There must be a huge body of literature on recovery. Time to seek it out.
There appear to be four basic Parkour moves.
1) Landings: Drop on your toes, plant your hands in front of you putting 30-40% of your weight on them and crouch.
2) Rolls: when landing off an obstacle (i.e., wall), once your feet hit the ground, you spring into a roll keeping the weight on your shoulders (not on your neck or back)
3) Turn Vault: as you approach an obstacle, place one hand and swing your body 180 degrees over the obstacle
4) Speed Vault: same as above but in this case, two hand are placed on the obstacle
These appear to be more skill related than requiring any unusual level of athletic ability (good thing). Check this out.
More advanced moves: climbing and jumping
Here is a description from College Parkour: Basic moves.
“These are two easy things to say to do, but they take a lot to master. Here’s the breakdown: Do your run-up and plant your dominant foot about waist high on the wall. The force of the run will transfer into your foot and you can launch upwards. To gain extra momentum, throw your arms upwards when launching up with your first foot. Bring up the other leg to stabilize yourself and get some extra height. Next, bring up your hands and lift yourself up. This is aided by kipping one or both legs backward, as done by bringing your heels to your butt. This helps bring your hips upwards and makes it easier to climb. Lift your legs up and climb over. After a little practice, you’ll look like a badass in no time.”
Let’s give these a try - with probably the exception of the climbing/jumping for now.
Here's the story:
Local gym has intro Parkour class
Yours truly thinks he's The Man.
Yours truly realizes he's not The Man
Time to get in real shape.
This would have been perfect when I was 20 years old (now not so much). However, given that I won’t be stronger or faster – and much more prone to injury – I’ll have to be a lot more deliberate. I checked out the MTV Ultimate Parkour challenge (just hit Google and you’ll find it). This was a group of the world’s best athletes – and some of them were getting injured. After a careful review of all on-line videos and some library research, here is what I will aspire to.
This level isn’t in the cards (but it is cool and worth watching)
I will attempt to document my attempt at middle age Parkour here.