“Four, three, two, one…” and so the pain begins. In recent weeks Girl on the River’s training has been dominated by the relentless, Antipodean tones of the HIIT (high intensity interval training) soundtrack. We’ve been erging to it – firm pressure, 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off, over and over again, and boy does it hurt. At the end of a session my lungs are on fire, I usually feel sick and I can be found slumped, helpless and panting, over the erg.
As if that weren’t enough, I arrived at bootcamp this morning to discover that the same, mean lady was assisting our workout. Whaaat?
But a strange thing is starting to happen. I’m actually, in a strange (very strange) way, starting to enjoy it. Regular readers of Girl on the River will know my feelings about the rowing machine and they’re not flattering. In Girl vs. Machine, machine tends to win.
There’s something about HIIT, though, that pushes you to achieve more than you ever could in an endurance session. It’s not that you get to recover much in between intervals so the pain and exertion are undeniably greater overall, but breaking it up like that motivates you like nothing else to keep pushing. So it was that last night I maintained a split (still modest by most people’s standards, admittedly) that I’d never achieved before and was still holding it in the last, agonised interval. And in a grim sort of way, it was almost… fun.
Maybe this is all a dream, though. I complained in my last post that I’d been getting tired and falling asleep all over the place, so perhaps I’m going to wake up and find that my reconciliation with the ergo was just a ridiculous sleep-time fabrication. But I’m kind of hoping it’s true, so if you see me snoozing, keep very quiet and don’t wake me…
