The Big TEN

The Big TEN

Friday, September 29th

* Activations
* Three laps prowler with two light heavy, one no weight , one walk it off. Not any easier on the recovery but breathing was good.

Saturday, September 30th

* Activations
* 5 sets of reverse hypers
* 10 laps of light prowler in 1 hour 30 mins

Sunday, October 1st

*Few activations and 5 min set of long ab straps pulldowns

Did he say 10 laps with the PROWLER???????????????

Yeah you read that other multiverse training right. Ten laps of prowler on the last day of the three month prowler push. In that three months, I only missed a couple of days. One, for my friend’s funeral and another one when the hurricane/tropical storm rolled through. Other then that, three months of prowler pushin’ everyday. Why? Well the first month was since I came up with it and the wife had done it already, I needed to step (ha!) up and do it. After the first couple of weeks, well three-ish I would say, it seemed to get a little more doable. In the past, as previously, stated it has always been awful and so I didn’t do it regularly. Mostly, I kept up the cardio with stepmill and regular sled. But around week 4 as I finished up the month, I really wanted to do more with it. So, why not, let’s do another month. Besides 30 mins of this beats most anything else because you are outside and no one can bother you. At the end of two months, I felt like the prowler wasn’t done with me yet and I had to go another month to figure out the rest of it. Lurking in the back of my mind was always a larger goal. I can’t really remember but I thought during the BB quest I did 10 laps with no weight. The wife had done 6 laps and threw the gauntlet at me somewhere around month one. I really wasn’t there for it at first, but the “Ten” loomed around my skull from time to time during the three months. There were a couple of times I felt really good and thought I might bang out 8 or 10 but I backed off. The last couple of weeks before the end of month three, when I was pushing in the opposite direction and the trips became more taxing, the ” Ten” came up as the finale goal and the milepost for anyone else. The wife says I have to win and she is partially correct but I also like to set the standard and see who will really try to beat it. Lastly, when you do this much prowler, you will drop fat and harden up.

Normally, the prowler is a son of bitch to pretty much anyone. It is much harder, more demanding physically and mentally and just not fun to do. It is like a real job where you just do hard labor, intensive work. At the end of the day, you feel great that the day is done and you have accomplished something, but beforehand you have worked it up as something it is not. Still just saying the words, PROWLER, makes most people at our gym a little sick and turned off. When Joey Batson came up with this monster along time ago, I don’t think he ever thought the pain would spread everywhere as it has. I am sure he grins ear to ear when he thinks about the prowler. I know when I say those words to people as either a suggestion or task, I get the devilish grin every time. Honestly, no matter how you apply it in any program, the prowler will punch up the amount of volume you can do either from a strength, speed or cardio aspect.

Time warping back to the first month, the idea was just to get the month in. In the past, calf, hip, glute, ham issues had always slowed me up and were always aggravated by the prowler. Continuously activating since Oct 2016, all of former off and on plantar fasciitis has for the most part gone. If you suffer from this, RPR and BAT can eliminate 90% plus of the pain. Throw in some bodytempering or YAP and the rest will go away too. Sometimes my feet and calves get a little tight but the activations keep all the tissue in great flexible and pliable shape. But around week 2 to 3, the improvements began to take hold. My body fat came down some. The wind in my sails was easier.

Month one I pretty much I alternated two laps (1/3 mile each lap) with 25 lbs per arm and 45 lbs per arm for one lap.

Month 2 it was alternating between 2 laps and 3 laps with the same weights.

Month 3 It was mostly the same. Weights were increased slightly but only randomly through out month.

I did spend the last 2 weeks preparing for the last day by going in the opposite direction around the parking lot. This changed the training dynamic by about 20% to 30%. Probably more of a 10 to 15% grade change physically as the push is all uphill out the gate. The rest was mentally % of challenge to me.

Finally September 30 arrived. I told the old lady the night before she has to be there to hold the fort down while I may or may not do “a thing”. She keeps asking me what I am going to do. i just say I have no idea if it will go down tommorrow or not but the plan is to go. The morning next morning was cool whihc was helpful. I got going about half way on the first lap and I realized I haven’t thought of a way to keep track. I know ten is a small number but when you are pushing the prowler all laws of the normal world do not apply. In my delerium I may lose or gain a lap altogether. We gots lots of pine cones round here so I devised a simple way to do this tracking thing. I stop about 3/4 to gather up some pinecones and realize, where exactly am I going to put them. Why on the weights on the prowler arms, of course! Well then I worry about losing time on each lap as I have set another GD goal of 8 minutes a lap by gathering these here pine cones. I get them anyway and rumble around to the beginning. Then it is how am I going to keep them close. Well there is a curb by the back door to keep the water out of the gym so I line them up and move one at a time. Genius Gump Genius! I line them up carefully and place one itty bitty cone over the line and think, well, you know. A lot of GD pine cones to go. By then I have lost about two minutes on the first lap so I am behind the eight ball now. I again devise another way out by cutting my breaks to 5 seconds on the slick side of the track and 10 seconds on the hard grade. There is hope, sort of! The lap peels off quickly and goody goody another cone moves over the curb. A little time is gained but not enough. I push further then planned and then take breaks. The only problem with this is recovering. You blow it too early and you are stuck on longer breaks later on. Roll on brah, I say. I peel off 5 laps and 5 cones smoothly and with almost no hard breathing. Six goes by, seven give me more of fit. Some calf cramping and back aches. The pace stays the same as I push harder. By now, though, the breaks are up to the 10 seconds all the way around. Eight, nine and ten are just mechanical get it done. Some hard breathing but recovered quickly. The cones jumped right over that curb. I could not get the times down to 8 minute laps but managed to average 9 minutes a lap for the 10 laps.

So there it is 10 laps with the prowler with a 25 lbs per arm. It took 1 hour 30 mins to complete. I could have done a few more but there wasn’t any reason. Ten was the ultimate goal. It took awhile to find it, almost three months but there it was. I thought after the first month, that would be it, then the second and the third. I took a couple days off but then I just wanted to get on it again. This time it is just a lap for time. Making an interesting way to do the cardio in the shortest but most effective time was also always the main goal. I just counted all the laps over the three months: 186 laps. This sounds super cool, but then I converted that to miles and it is around 56 miles over the three months. Then I said GD I am wasting my life doing this. Then I said but you got to eat a shitload of cookies, cakes, desserts , breads, you get it. The weight loss did slow down with the extra eating but I ended up under 220 lb for a minute or two!

Final life wasting lessons. I wrote in na earlier log about how I was actually training for this by working on the breathing continuously. I practiced many different ways to find the most productive form from a distance standpoint and recovery time. In the old days, it was just a heart racing blowout. By the end of the three month prep, it was regimented and regulated. Like any good training cycle in any sport it was accomplished. I throughly enjoyed the discovery process again. It has been a long time since I enjoyed training. Maybe I can make it a professional sport. Of course it would stop being fun when really it is only for the cookies.

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