For the last 5 weeks, I’ve been busting my ass at the crack of dawn with Nike and Sidewalk Hustle. Hawley invited me to participate in the Sidewalk Hustle x NTC Sunrise NTC Sessions. Monday mornings, Nike’s Canadian Master Trainer, Eva Redpath leads us through a high intensity 45min interval workout at the crack of dawn. Literally. I’m up at 5am like an insane person to do this workout. The workout overlooks the city as we train at the gorgeous Malaparte space in the TIFF Lightbox.

The first week was very hard on me. I was sore for days. I haven’t kept up with my fitness. I started do yoga at home but I hadn’t stepped foot in a gym in years. That week I swore up and down that I’d never let my fitness sink to the bottom of the barrel like that again.

I’m not usually one for classes but the NTC sessions reminded me of my training days. So very long ago when I was a sport obsessed youth. Many of the drills we performed were exactly the same. It brought back lots of Track & Field memories when I lived and breathed plyometrics.

I downloaded the Nike Training app and it’s really good. This Monday’s workout was almost exactly like Carli Lloyd’s Metabolic Kick Hit which is the featured workout in the app right now. There are so many workouts by master trainers and pro athletes that use little or no equipment. You can even do many of the workouts at home in your living room. I only have a couple quibbles about the app. I love the Chromecast support but the audio should be used by Chromecast too. Right now the picture is on my TV but the sound comes from my phone. Not ideal. The second issue I have is that the instructional video starts several seconds after the exercise timer has begun. So if you don’t know how to do the next exercise you lose time waiting for the video to explain. The Nike NTC app works with Nike+ and Google Fit. I just got a Fitbit and I wish it was integrated with that also.

The sessions are great because Nike also outfitted me in my first pairs of shoes from the brand in over 20 years. It makes sense they would want us to be rocking Nike gear to the sessions and I’m happy to oblige. I love my the funky black and white Nike Free trainers. I wore my Air Max’s all week, I couldn’t take them off.

For this week’s session, Hawley created an amazing workout playlist that helped us push through the burn. Check it out

You can follow the Nike NTC action on social media by following the #BetterForIt, #sidewalkhustlexnike, #nikentc, #nikentoronto hashtags.

Next week is the last day of training for this session but thankfully we are moving to a new time and new place.

photos: Arthur James for Sidewalk Hustle