This winter break I spent training for SAISA Track. I did this because I wanted to maintain my endurance and better my ability to perform for the competition on the 8th of Feb. I took the initiative to plan to find a local gym in Austria ( where I spent my winter break) to do the training because I wouldn’t have been able to run for long in the snow and cold temperatures. I coordinated with my mother’s brother Hannes and asked him if he knew of any gyms in town because he is an extremely athletic, sporty person. He recommended a gym called ‘Vita Club’ which offered week passes for me to use during my 2-week stay in Salzburg. It was a challenge to go to a new gym in a foreign country because I didn’t know what to expect or how people would be. Nevertheless, it was mandatory to train so I had to push through that discomforting feeling (Self awareness).
After the first session in the gym on the 22nd of December I felt a great sense of accomplishment and growth from the experience. I went to the gym 5 times within the span of the 2 weeks I was there, mainly because of other activities we had planned which didn’t give me the time to do it for the entire week. On the days I would go to the gym, I would always plan out my workouts to target my two main objectives which were to grow muscle in my lower body and build my overall endurance. My workouts were always structured with a warmup of 3k on the treadmill -I increased my average speed every day in order to up the intensity. I then moved to the weights where I would do compound movements such as Squats, Bulgarian split squats, RDL’s and Hip Trusts. I would always push myself in the gym and take my time with the exercises to really build strength in my legs. As I progressed in the gym I noticed an improvement in my capacity when performing the 3k runs, my times were reduced from a start of 20 mins to 15 mins and then lastly 14 mins. Overall the experience was extremely pleasant and enjoyable, I understood that the things that seem daunting shouldn’t stop you from trying them because at the end of the day, I achieved what I wanted (perspective).