Finally it’s over! After 25 arduous weeks I have completed the transfer from the Royal Marines to the Royal Navy as a Physical Training Instructor. It has been a long 6 months plagued with back injuries, tiredness, over training and poor nutrition. Days have been on average 18 hours long with physical training, lectures, instruction, various sports and the odd piece of remedial physical activity thrown in for good measure! Nutrition has been poor due to lack of onsite facilities, time constraints and with lack of sleep/rest and over training it has been a long hard slog. Most weekends have been spent back home with my family but I have been miserable company as I spent most of it sleeping and moaning! Along with the curriculum we have endured evenings packed with pass out display preparations which finally ended on Fri 4th Nov as 10 of us put on a 90 min physical display in front of 150 distinguished guests. This involved a mixture of acting, singing, dancing, entertaining, club swinging, gymnastics, rope climbing and a frantic 15 min anaerobic high vault display. The latter being compared by my good self as a trusty 3×5 TR session with 30 secs rests! Pretty disgusting!
So what does this mean now? As posted in previous blogs I plan to have a full week rest. Whilst I actually feel relatively fresh physically, I still need to get back on board with sleep and nutrition and relax mentally. I have lots of niggles and aches i.e; back, ankles, wrists and neck (dive forward rolls over a 7 foot high vault box at speed don’t always result in perfect landings!) I have lost around 4-5 kg of good weight over the last 6 months (down from around 100 to 95kg). Although I am hungry to attack my training plan I have to be strict to take the rest and ease back in sensibly. In previous blogs I described my ill fated attempt to erg over summer leave back in August which ended in bodily shut down and illness. I have made a promise with myself to be careful this time though and look at long term performance (BIRC 12) rather than short term catch up.
I am sitting out the C2 challenge series this season having missed the opening 2 rounds and witnessing some impressive results. I may throw a couple of results in in the new year if I have anything worth sharing but the main focus is now 20 weeks until BIRC. I have been offered a place on the Royal Navy Team for CRASH B’s but am yet decided on whether or not to commit, not just financially but as I may not be ready to pull anything worth while travelling for. Instead I may head to Manchester for the English before BIRC a few weeks later. The Royal Navy team are producing a number of new and old fast athletes who are performing well in the C2 league. I watched from the side lines last week as 3 of them pulled comfortable sub 6.20 2k’s at the RN/RM Indoor Championships. Oh how I felt hungry!!
So for now it’s time to settle into my new job as a RN Physical Training
Instructor, rest, eat and follow the long awaited training plan. I have kept in touch with the forum since being away and followed in awe various blogs and first few C2 challenge series results. I plan to blog weekly and am now waiting for the go!
