Day 5 - Visit of Spain

We had our first interval session this morning. Martin had prepared what we call a fartlek : Alternating fast, slow, fast, slow. Between 12 and 16 repetitions of 30 sec fast/ 30 sec jog where everyone could go as fast or as slow as they would like. The goal of a fartlek is to push yourself while managing to finish the workout with no distance marks, playing with the ground and feeding off the runner next to you, while focusing on the breathing, exactly like in cross country ! Short intervals are the best way to start the series of workouts after few days in altitude.

After lunch and a nap, we took the vans at 3pm to the city of Puigcerdà in Spain, roughly 30min away from the hotel. Everyone was looking forward to this trip as it was for most of them the first time in Spain ! They had time to do some shopping, eat ice cream, visit, and of course, to get right on the boarder line (there is actually just a sign, there is no boarder patrol or anything like that) to take pictures.

Back to the hotel at 6:00pm, we enjoyed a core/abs session outside on the grass and finished by teaching all campers some stretches they can do helping one another. Everyone had a good laugh.

Finally after dinner, Martin gave a short presentation on the benefits of altitude training for a sport of endurance like running, and the way it works on our body (summary : less oxygen at high altitude due to lower atmospheric pressure, which makes our body produce more red blood cells, which ultimately leads to more oxygen carried and transported in our working muscles at sea level after the camp ! ).

And we finished with another fun game all together to cap off the night. Curfew at 10pm, talk to you all tomorrow !