The health and fitness thing is going pretty well right now. I've got rolls of fat which just aren't going to go away but at least I'm fighting the good fight.
Apart from the initial assessment I had two sessions with Troy, my personal trainer, before Christmas and have now had two this week. He works me harder and smarter than I can push myself and after each 50 minute workout I have nothing left to give, which is as it should be. Massive endorphin high though.
Meanwhile out on the Albert Park lakeside trail I'm getting good mileage into the legs. Ran the standard 2 laps (9.5kms, 5.8 miles) on Mon, Tues and Weds this week. The prevailing wind direction is South-Easterly and if you run anti-clockwise you can have a long leg downwind. With this assistance I lowered the previous record of 47 mins 15 seconds down to 44 mins 55 seconds last week.
Then yesterday afternoon I went food shopping, ate a few more carbs than normal, a banana and a bottle of Gatorade. The temperature was a pleasant 22C when I hit the trail at 6.30 in the evening. For the sake of feeling good and getting a harder workout I decided to run into the wind and thought I might get a 47 minute time.
After about a kilometre I realised I was going pretty easily at a higher pace than normal. It was went I went through my halfway split in 22 mins 10s that I began to really knuckle down to it.
It's quite useful to have runners ahead of you to act as de facto pacemakers and on the final, grinding upwind leg I had the perfect hare to chase. And with 100 metres to the line I sprinted past him and on to the bollard outside the rowing club which is my start/finish point.
43 mins 29s. Upwind. That's about on pace for a three and a half hour marathon. Two years ago I weighed nearly twenty stone!
Gatorade must be a Class A drug.
EDIT: But then again I did 43m 34s this evening just 24 hours later, so perhaps I've just stopped jogging and started running.
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