Andrew is getting fit

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I mentioned previously that I had booked in for a fitness assessment. Well, today was the fateful day.

It started off fairly innocuously as the instructor was late. So the first ten minutes of my test were spent sitting down. Average heartrate 54 bpm.

Once he arrived, we then had to climb 4 flights of stairs up to the testing room. Average heartrate 100 bpm. Much to my disappointment that was not part of the test.

We then sat down and he explained what he was going to measure and asked for a bit of my history etc. He was absolutely floored when I told him I had already lost 81 pounds. He said he’d seen me in the gym before and never would have guessed I’d lost that much weight.

The first thing that he tested was my blood pressure. This came in as 120/80 which is in the high end of the normal range apparently.

The next test was the one I was dreading. The body fat test. He started off by telling me that over 25% was obese and that he’d never had anyone go that high before. I immediately thought oh shit I’m going to be the first. He asked me if I had any idea of what my rating was and I told him by scale says about 22-24 depending on which way the wind is blowing. He measured me up and the rating came in at 18.9% which I was sure was a mistake so he did it again and got the same. Friggin hell that’s in the normal range for men! Now I still think he’s off by a hell of a lot a bit but hey, he’s the expert not me.

I also got my waist to hip ratio done and that was in the normal range as well. The dreaded BMI was computed and as expected it came in as overweight.

The next test was for estimated VO2 max and it involved cycling while he took some measurements of my heart rate and adjusted knobs and buttons to make it harder. My estimated VO2 max is 50 which he said was ok.

I then had to do the strength tests. The first of these was to do as many pushups in a row as I could. I did 25 as I knew I could do 25 then piked out. I should have done a few more but oh well. Once more he said that my effort was in the fair to good range for my age group. The next test was the sit up test. For this one I had to do as many sit ups as I could in 1 minute. I got to 40 which rates as good but I’m going to do a voluntary downgrade to fair as I’m fairly sure that the last few weren’t quite up to form.

I also had to do some flexibility tests which I aced. There were 3 sets, a touching the hands behind the back, one arm from above, one from below. I surprised myself when I did that one I’ll tell you. Then there was a hamstring test which was fine. And last but not least the old touch the toes test. I’ve been able to touch my toes ever since I started doing squats. Squats are great for improving your flexibility I reckon. Everyone should do them.

I must admit I was quite surprised by my results. I appear to be a lot fitter than I thought I was. The trainer said I should work more on my strength as my cardio fitness is good. I won’t quite change the name of my blog to Andrew is fit yet however. I still have a significant amount of weight to lose from around my stomach area. But it does appear that I am no longer unfit which is something to celebrate.

I think the next test that I will do will be the beep test. I’ve never done one of these and I’m told they are quite tough.

Tags: Interesting, fitness by AndrewE
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Yesterday, I completed the Couch to 5K program. I started the program in mid January and now, in Mid March, I can run 5 km in a row.

Along the way I’ve done the following:

1. I ran at least 46.5 km. I didn’t start recording my distance until I got up to20 minute runs so I have actually run a little more.
2. I got bronchitis and didn’t let it derail me! In many respects this was the biggest change for the improvement for me. In the past whenever I’ve gotten sick I’ve used it as an excuse to return to my old habits i.e. overindulging in comfort food, giving up on the gym etc. I’m very pleased that I did not give up on everything when it happened this time. I really think that having this blog helped me stay on track and focused.
3. I’ve lost about 20 pounds.
4. I’ve been called a bastard. (Sorry Marshie, couldn’t resist!)
5. I’ve been called an inspiration.
6. I posed with a lot of butter!
7. I attracted a lot of strange people who are doing google searches for “naked fit men in the gym” with this post.
8. I’ve entered my first 5K race. Less than 2 weeks to go!
9. I’ve amazed myself and a few others I think. I never believed that I would be able to run and now I can.

I still find it really incredible how quickly our bodies can adapt to the various stresses we put upon them. I’ve learnt quite a bit about myself over the last few weeks and have a better appreciation of what I am capable of now.

I’d like to thank all of you who read my blog and have offered such great supportive comments and helpful bits of advice. I don’t think I could have done it without you. I’d especially like to thank my ever suffering wife who has had to put up with me being a bit obsessed and single minded about things lately. She has supported me in all my decisions and darling, if you read this, I love you.

Next week I start the One Hour Runner program!

Tags: C25K, Life, Milestones, fitness by AndrewE
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Seeing as I ran 5K on Monday I have decided to treat this as my final week on C25K. On Friday I should finish the program so I need to decide what I will do next. One of the goals I have set myself is to do the Quarter marathon at the Auckland Marathon this year. The quarter is 10.2 km so I need to train myself up to run 10K. Fortunately this is in November so I have some time to get there but I think it would be good to start training for it early.

I find I tend to do well when I can follow a program so I’ve decided that I will follow another training program to get me to 10 km.

There seem to be two major programs recommended to take you to 10K (or one hour of running).

The first is Hal Higdon’s Spring Training. This takes 12 weeks to get you to 6 miles (approx 10K) but it involves running most days and that might be a bit awkward.

The second is Cool Running’s The One Hour Runner. This takes a minimum of ten weeks (depending on how you go you can add weeks in) and involves running 3 times a week.

I quite like the routine of running 3 times a week only so I’ve decided to go with that.

The One Hour Runner program is as follows:

Weeks 1 - 3: Right now you are running 30 minutes a day, 3 days a week. Your weekly commitment of time is 90 minutes. Continue doing this for three weeks.

Week 4: Run 30 minutes, 29 minutes, 35 minutes. Weekly total: 94 minutes

Week 5: Run 30 minutes, 32 minutes, 38 minutes Weekly total: 100 minutes

Week 6: Run 30 minutes, 33 minutes, 41 minutes Weekly total: 104 minutes

Week 7: Run 30 minutes, 34 minutes, 45 minutes Weekly total: 109 minutes

Week 8: Run 30 minutes, 36 minutes , 49 minute Weekly total: 115 minutes

Week 9: Run 30 minutes, 38 minutes, 54 minutes Weekly total: 122 minutes

Week 10: Run 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 60 minutes Weekly total: 130 minutes

So what I will do is finish C25K this week and then launch straight into OHR as the first 3 weeks of OHR are the same as the last week of C25K.

I’m also going to run all of the Run Auckland series races (circumstances permitting). These are 5K or 10K races so I will aim to run them on my 30 minute days as I’m planning on doing them as 5K races. Having said that I may do the last one as a 10K if I have managed to run 10 km by then. Of course, this all assumes that I enjoy the 1st 5K event which is about 3 weeks away

Boy, times have changed for me. A few months ago I would have said you were nuts if you told me I’d be pondering which running program to take.

Tags: C25K, OHR, fitness, running by AndrewE
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Well, I gave out a loud and proud “Hell yeah!” today when I RAN 5KM!

This was a tough, tough run. I started off thinking it would be nice to run the full 5K today so I thought I would start out a little faster than normal and started off at 10.5kph. I kept this up till halfway and truth be told up until then it wasn’t too bad. However, the second half was really tough. I kept on thinking one more minute and by the time the last 5 minutes rolled up I had abandoned all pretensions of completing the 5K. I was thinking …today’s run is only supposed to be 28 minutes I’ll stop then… However, 28 minutes arrived and I had done 4.6 km so I thought…one more lap…I can do this. So I ran a bit more. And I made it. 5KM in 29:36.

C25K rocks!

Tags: C25K, Milestones, fitness, running by AndrewE
18 Comments »

Eight months ago when I decided I was going to try and get fit, I bought a nice shiny new bike. I got a Giant Sedona LX. When I was young I used to cycle everywhere so I knew I liked cycling. I also used to cycle to University back when I was a student (until some sod stole my bike).

I did quite a bit of research online and decided that this bike met my needs. It had all the fancy bits that I wanted but didn’t really need like disk brakes, shock absorbers etc. It could go both on road and off road. In short it is a brilliant bike.

I bought it on a Sunday but unfortunately it was pouring down with rain and I did not want to take it for it’s inaugral ride in the wet for a number of reasons:

1. It was still shiny and new. Mud spatters on my new bike! No way!
2. I wear glasses and they fog up terribly when I exercise in the wet. I once tried to put on anti fog liquid but almost passed out from the fumes (apparently you are only supposed to put a tiny bit on - who reads instructions eh?).
3. As previously established, I’m soft.

Anyways, back to my story. I had bought the bike and was planning on going for a cycle the next day (weather permitting).

However, at about 4am my wife woke me up and said her waters had broken about 4 hours earlier. Oh, didn’t I mention that my wife was pregnant at the time? Anyways, 3 days later my daughter finally made it into the world. Here’s a photo of me looking happy but tired on her second evening in the world. Needless to say the bike, shiny and new though it was, got neglected for a while.

I don’t think I actually took it for a ride until about two months later. But when I did, it was good. It had everything that you would want in a bike, except an engine. Boy, it needs an engine.

So I have ridden my poor bike about four times in the last eight months. This is its current status. It is hanging from the roof in my garage.

I think I need to go for a ride on it. Maybe this weekend.

Weather permitting.

Tags: Life, Toys, fitness by AndrewE
10 Comments »

I had this great idea that I would go and run along the beach at Mission Bay this morning but when I woke up today it was absolutely pouring down with rain.  I don’t know about you my loyal readers, but the idea of running in monsoon like conditions just does not appeal to me.

So, I did the next best thing and went to the gym to visit the treadmill instead.  On the drive in to the gym I passed a bunch of hardy souls out running and I must admit I did feel a little soft.

Today’s run called for 25 minutes on non stop running.  No mucking about with intervals or what not.  I started off thinking “I can do this!”  Halfway through I was thinking “I’m going to die.” But I refused to give up and I didn’t die.

Today’s run was the longest non stop run I have done in my life. I covered 4.1 km in 25 minutes.  I’m fairly proud of that even though its not particularly fast.  The fact remains that I did it.

Tags: Uncategorized by AndrewE
28 Comments »

Today is Waitangi Day in New Zealand, which means that it is a public holiday (yay!). The downside of this is that my gym is shut today so I had to go running out in public - the horror!

I decided I would go and do my session along the Auckland waterfront as it is relatively flat and the view is outstanding. My route map is here.

I took my camera along to get some shots of the sunrise but unfortunately I’ve suffered a camera malfunction and all my photos have disappeared off of it. This is a photo of where I was off flickr.Week 4 has a lot more running than in week 03. In fact the shortest run this week is as long as the longest run from last week.As always, it starts off with a 5 min brisk walk to walk up. This was easy.

The next phase was an easy three minute run. This was followed by a very short ninety second walk. Then came the longest run so far - five minutes. Now five minutes doesn’t seem particularly long, but boy, by the end of it I was shuffling along like an arthritic old man. I was very glad that there was a two and a half minute walk after it. The next three minute run seemed easy by comparison although the ninety second walk after it flashed by. The last five minutes were tough. After running for what seemed like half an hour my podcast buddy said: “You’re doing great - one more minute to go! Step it up!” So I did, and I survived.

And I showed myself that I could do week 04.

Running outside is quite different to running on the treadmill. For one thing, it’s harder to pace yourself. On the treadmill, you have to keep to a certain pace or you fall off the back. On the road there is no such pressure. Another thing I noticed was that the air is damn nippy before sunrise. And, a nice thing I noticed is the cameraderie amongst the exercisers. There were a lot of runners and walkers along the route I choose. Almost everyone gives you a smile and a nod.

I’m already looking forward to the next workout on Friday, although I’ll be heading back to the gym for this one. I think once I can do the full 5 km I will be running outside more. I’m starting to get addicted to this.

Tags: Uncategorized by AndrewE
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