Camber Sands Beach training Oct 2017
On Saturday 7th October, the TSA Taekwondo team and a few other met at the Beach. The gem of a Beach at Camber Sands in East Sussex. The beach is about an hour away from Sittingbourne and slightly less from Faversham. We have been coming along to this beach to do this type of training for about 6 years now.
Nearly 20 people showed up to do the training this time along with one dog. We had the obligatory photo to start the event followed by a gentle run to the lifeguard station and back (about half a mile in total). The tide was coming in so we had to do our non-sand dune fitness exercises quickly or else we would have to continue in the sea. The weather was not too cold (unless you stood still) with quite a strong wind. There was no sun just grey clouds.
We quickly moved away from the beach and onto the sand dunes which is always the main focus of this training exercise. We always use the dunes that are quite far away from the restaurants. There were some other groups doing fitness activities on the beach but fortunately they were not near us and did not interfere with us.
The sand dunes are brutal, the gradient combined with the sand slipping underneath your feet make you feel like all the effort you put in is wasted energy and you go nowhere fast. So what do you do, you try harder and put more effort in until you can't keep it up and you walk. It genuinely feels like your legs are burning or rather running out of energy. This is what makes this type of training so good for Taekwondo it works your legs to the max and your heart and lungs get a heavy workout too. The worst or hardest exercise of all is when you run to the top of the sand dune and come half way down and then go back up again then all the way to the bottom. When you have to repeat this 3-4 times it is a killer.
Everyone put in loads of effort this time around, there was plenty of walking and injuries and sighs and tuts and blowing of cheeks but there was also lots of grit and determination and pride in achieving something that most people would not contemplate.
All in all a fantastic day at the beach, who needs good weather?
By the way, the dog did a couple of laps up the dunes then gave up and sat down with the watching parents.
