My "Reconditioning Programme"

I have been intrigued by Graham Henry's idea of the All Blacks reconditioning programme. The reconditioning program saw 22 top All Blacks miss the first seven rounds of Super 14 to work on their strength, speed and conditioning without taking the knocks of full competition. The media and fans panned this decision, claiming that professional players are paid to play rugby, not work out in the gym.

The result is a bigger, more brutal, All Black team, where the superior level of fitness, strength and speed will allow the players to lift the tempo of their game while their opponents run out of steam. In fact, the All Blacks of 2007 are radically different from the All Blacks of 2006, because of the dramatic physical advances made by the "protected 22" in their reconditioning period.

And now that the Rugby World Cup has reached the business end, these players are able to reach their full potential on the field, thanks in part to the reconditioning programme. It could be the difference to winning the Webb Ellis trophy or failing yet again. In other words, whether the reconditioning period was an absolute success or an utter waste of time.

Meanwhile, far far away from the rugby field where our nation's hopes rest on our rugby team bringing the cup back home, I have been inspired to create my own "reconditioning programme" (technically it's not a reconditioning programme like what the All Blacks have done, but I'm sticking with it for now). The reason is that I set myself a goal to complete the marathon by 4 hours. Last year, in the same marathon (and my first), I failed that by 17 minutes. And feeling rather experimental, I wanted to see what effect the reconditioning programme will have, and whether it will work for me.

I've managed to take a week of work, which is only a fraction of time compared to the All Blacks reconditioning period. This decision was planned a couple of months in advance. In preparing for my marathon, I should be peaking my training efforts around 4 weeks before the main event. This should hopefully result in me being fitter, faster, stronger (and other cool adjectives) and operate on full capacity for much longer.

In the context of the marathon, the purpose of my reconditioning programme is to allow me to supercompensate my training, increase my mileage and do harder, more intense, running sessions. Having all this available time allows me to spend more time on training and recovery, without needing to go to work, which already takes up most of my day. Who wants to go to work feeling tired from a hard running session? And if you had a bad day at work, or were forced to stay late, that would curtail some vital training time.

Below is what I'll be doing during my reconditioning period.

Reconditioning Programme
Monday:

• Morning: 8 x 2 km at tempo pace, 90 secs easy
• Afternoon: Rest, or stretch
• Evening: 5 miles easy

Tuesday:

• 3 x 30 mins at tempo pace, 5 mins easy

Wednesday:

• Morning: 10 x 2 km at tempo pace, 60 secs easy
• Afternoon: Rest, or stretch
• Evening: 6 miles easy

Thursday:

• Morning: 6 x 500 m hill repititions, walk/jog downhill
• Evening: 6 miles easy

Friday:

• 7 miles at tempo pace

Saturday:

• 3 hour long run or 32 km

Sunday:

• Rest or 5 miles easy

Done properly, I should be totalling between 100-130 km, which is nearly 2-3 times more mileage than what I typically do in a normal week. The increased mileage also poses increased injury risk, so I hope that the increased rest periods I will have (sleeping, putting my feet up, stretching, proper nutrition) will keep the injury monster at bay.

This is an exciting initiative, and I hope it will help me realise a 4 hour finishing time. If it's going to work for the All Blacks, it might work for me too. You never know, unless you try.

Promotion

Someone at work told me I was a Senior Legacy Interface Developer, according to the organisation chart. I didn't believe her, because in my last performance review at the end of last year, the job title said Junior Software Engineer. Okay, so Legacy Interface Developer is just a glorified Software Engineer that works with custom components.

But the point is, I still consider myself to be at junior level, or maybe in the lower intermediate level, if there is such a thing. So I checked out the organisation chart, and found out she wasn't bluffing! There in plain view, in the organisation chart, above my name, were the words Senior Legacy Interface Developer.

I'm definitely not complaining! I hope it's not a mistake either; it would be a horrible feeling to be "demoted" in a sense. We'll see what they say at my next performance review.

Bad sportsmanship again

Another retrospective post written on the 29th September 2007. Lightening really does strike twice in the same place. Earlier I blogged about bad sportsmanship when I was playing indoor cricket. If you haven't read the story, I'd advise you to read it first before you read on below.

Yesterday, we played the same team, and because we knew they were tough to beat we entered the game with a stronger lineup than when we previously played them. Unfortunately we lost the game while chasing a very gettable target.

But there was another controversial run-out that happened somewhere in the 3rd partnership. I wasn't keeper at the time, I was fielding on the 3-line, and before the umpire declared over, the batsman walked out of his crease. The quick-thinking keeper knocked the bails over and appealed for the decision, which was, of course, given by the umpire. This didn't go down too well with the opposition. But if they're stupid enough to walk out of their creases while the ball is still in play, and then bitch and moan about this rule or their ignorance of that rule, then frankly those guys should stop playing indoor cricket.

On to the run chase, and we didn't bat well enough to chase their gettable target. In the final over, our wicket keeper was on strike against the very same person who took a swipe at me. The dickhead proceed to bowl all sorts of fast deliveries: some wide and full outside off-stump, some full tosses, some bouncers that would have hit the batsman's head. In a nutshell, our keeper couldn't score of any of those deliveries, and to be fair he is a good batsman, but perhaps he got a bit intimated at the pace or the variety of the deliveries. Though we were playing strike three rules, there were a few extras bowled, so they never reached strike three, even though our keeper couldn't score a single run off his bat.

And as soon as that over ended, the dickhead went up to our keeper and started to mouth off at him. "That's what you get for being cheap!", in reference to that run-out on one of his teammates. No prizes for guessing what our keeper said back at him. To do those sorts of things, which is true bad sportsmanship, just reaffirms how much of a prick and a hypocrite he is.

In future, whenever we get to play this team again, I'll take great pleasure in smashing him for seven, or bowling him through his gate!

Talking it up

I've been very quiet on the blog front lately, due in part to marathon training taking up most of my free time, so this is a retrospective entry, which is actually written on the 29th September 2007.

Anyways, getting back on topic. One of the things I decided to do was to enter a speech competition through my Toastmasters club. I was nominated to represent my club in the Area competitions, which were held on Saturday 15th September 2007. The category I entered was the humorous speech category. Chris, another toastmaster from my club, also entered; he entered the table topics category, where contestants speak for 1-2 minutes on a topic they have not heard beforehand.

The table topics competition was the first category to kick off the Area competition. The question was With all the professionalism in sport these days, is sponsorship killing sportsmanship? Chris was the first speaker out of five speakers, and he actually answered the question, while the others did not; they twisted their answers to say that sponsorship is/is not killing sport. Unfortunately Chris did not win that category, nor did he place in the top three, which I thought wasn't fair on him as he did really well considering the question. The winner of the table topics category, Peter, has been a toastmaster for nearly 30 years, so he had a wealth of experience behind him. I hope to learn a lot from him on how to answer a table topics question.

Next it was my turn with the humorous speech category. This time there were only three speakers, and I was the first. I was all psyched up, and in the end I approached the stage without my notes, so I was relying on a good/quick memory to help me through my speech, titled Holidaying on the wrong boat. It was about my experience on a cruise ship, and for humorous effect I greatly exaggerated certain events that took place. The events did actually take place though, but obviously I had to exaggerate to get the audience laughing.

And laugh they did. It was a great feeling to entertain a room of strangers, getting them to laugh. And as soon as I sat down, I felt pretty good. The other two speakers were good speakers, so I had some competition on my hands.

After much waiting, I was declared the winner of the Area competition in the humorous speech category. All the judges unanimously declared me the first speaker, while the other speakers were mixed in second or third. I also learned that I was one second away from disqualification; if your speech exceeds 7 and a half minutes, you are automatically disqualified. Imagine how bad that would be to give a good speech, to thoroughly entertain the audience, and then get disqualified for overstepping ever-so-slightly!

So, myself and Peter, the winners of the Area competition in the humorous speech and table topics categories move on to the Division competition, where the winners of each Area competition face each other to decide who is the best speaker in the Division. A Division (in this case, Auckland) is composed of different areas. And having seen the quality of other speakers in the Area competitions, I have a very big hill to climb if I am to win at Division level. I will use the same speech, but obviously I will have to improve on certain areas, polish it up, and hopefully address my timing issues.

Here's hoping I can pull off another victory for my club, and win the Division competition next week.