Thursday 24th June saw the last heavy training session before the trip to South Korea. It was more of the same as the squad headed for the Phoenix park to undertake some serious conditioning drills. We started off with a 3k warm up jog which brought us to the foot of some very steep and long hills. At the hills each of the guys had to sprint up and back. Each lap was timed and every subsequent lap had to have a better time than the last one. This meant that while they were getting more tired they had to increase their speed and output.
After ten laps the squad then had to perform the run 'til you die sprints. These were repetitive runs up the same steep hills for as many as you could do before you could no longer stand. To demonstrate how hard these were, super fit Alvy only managed four. Everyone was well and truly operating at their anaerobic threshold.
This last session was a great test of grit and it proved that each and everyone of them are super 'six pack' fit. They are a credit to themselves, they put in some hard work over the last eight weeks and with the pressures of a leaving cert and junior cert to deal with. Remarkable young athletes altogether. Alvy says Adam will have to do the death sprints on Sunday as he missed out today. He's right!
The next few days will be wind down days, relaxing and studying tactics including some visualisation work. More updates will follow.
