Supporting Epilepsy Action Blog

Tyre Training – Richmond Park

This Saturday I went to Richmond Park via the local tyre garage, to do the obligatory tyre-pulling synonymous with aspiring Arctic Explorers!  With all our kit now packed up to go, the harnesses are all in store with the sledges, so the previous training we’ve done on the sand dunes of South Wales with the actual kit can’t be done.

Instead I used a rucksack, rope and bungees to attach a tyre but the drag wasn’t much good, so then strapped a log to it for added weight.  Needless to say I had a few weird looks and a few people came up to chat – always useful to carry a supply of business cards with the blog website address on, just in case!  A young boy asked for a lift which I duly gave – only occurred after I could have charged!  A few dogs as well found the tyre irresistible to have a go at, although I was mindful of spooking the horses so kept clear of them.

I’ll be heading down a few more times in the coming weeks, and will try to get Epilepsy Action featured prominently on me or the tyre for good measure.  It's useful training although the real feel of pulling a 13 stone sledge over snow and ice is very difficult to replicate with a tyre over mud and grass - a sledge is designed to slide and there's very little friction on the snow and ice, so once moving it's not that hard, but technically challenging with obstacles like ice rubble and so on obviously.  You use different muscle groups though, particularly in your legs, which is hard to replicate in a gym on a cross trainer.  It does add to the variety of the training of course!

Thank you to Laura - training buddy, travelling PR rep, motivator and camera woman, all in one!