Training with "Coach" Speedy

When my wife and I first heard our son's heartbeat while she was pregnant, we were shocked at how rapid a baby's heartrate is. He instantly gained the nickname "Speedy" and has never lost it. Recently Speedy, who is now 4, has decided he is going to "coach me" for the marathon.

A few weeks ago I was reading a Runner's World article about getting core workouts done while balancing family life, running, etc. I pulled one of the ideas to test out and it went someting like this:

Step 1: locate a full deck of cards, including jokers if possible
Step 2: have toddler or other small person who can tell the number or card type pick a card
Step 3: select an exercise (sit-ups, push-ups, supermans, etc) and do the number specified on the card. Then, help your small person learn to count backward by doing the number of exercises again
Step 4 (A Coach Speedy Special): If your small person pulls a jack out of the deck, you have to do 10 jumping jacks and then 10 more as they count backward.

Here is an example after this weekend's 14 miler on hills:

I returned from my run and began to stretch while Coach Speedy got his handy, dandy deck of cards. He asked what exercise I would do first. I chose sit-ups (front, left side, right side as one rep). He took the top card and told me it was a face card. This means sit-ups 1-10 as he counts. Then I had to do the same sit-ups again as he counted backward. Effectively this gives me 1 set of 20 sit-ups. We switched exercises and this went on for another 10 minutes or so. Then, he hit a jack and got a big smile on his face. "Time for your jumping jacks Abba. I hope your legs aren't tired yet!" Cue the pre-schooler singing his version of "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky as he jumps up and down while I do the jumping jacks.

You get the idea...Coach Speedy struck again this morning as I rollerbladed him in the running stroller (combined weight of 60 lbs for 3 miles). "Faster Abba, you are going too slow. You can't win the race if you go this slow!" Lucky for me he sang a different tune with his teachers..."Do you know how we got here? We skated. My Abba skated me to school - he's so cool!"

Thanks Coach Speedy!