Starting out: building base level fitness

So, when did all this (madness) begin?

I'd been working on strengthening my knees following my operations in February 2011 but decided I really needed to get my fitness back on track.

Looking back, I was able to run a bath, but not run the length of the street without my heart beating out of my chest in complaint! My mass had increased to 94kg… remember kids, weight is a Force and is measured in Newtons, Mass is a measure of how much stuff you contain - which, given 1 Mole of Carbon atoms has a mass of 12g, we're probably looking at 5x10 to the power of 27, or 5,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms!!! In fact, there are more atoms in your body than stars in the universe…

Anyway, in March 2012, being the gadget geek I am, I managed to get my hands on a Garmin 910XT - which, for those interested in improving their fitness, is the training aid. It is perfect for triathlon training, using an accurate GPS receiver to calculate your distance and speed whilst running, cycling or even swimming in open water. It counts your laps in the pool (something which I am hopeless at) and even recognises which swimming stroke you are doing. The heart rate strap connects wirelessly to the device and records your heart rate during activities so you can tailor each workout - a much more effective way than using R.P.E. (rating of perceived exertion - i.e. how tired you are on a scale of 1-10). So, when you see the training logs later in this blog, they've all been recorded on my trusty watch… although I still haven't figured out how to show the time  ;-)

Armed with my new toy, I set out to build up my base level fitness...

Total training sessions to date:

March 2012: 23 activities, 179 km, 14 hours of training, 6,946 kCalories

April 2012: 10 activities, 313 km, 12 hours of training, 6,638 kCalories

May 2012: 19 activities, 341 km, 21 hours of training, 12,185 kCalories

June 2012: 28 activities, 382 km, 24 hours of training, 13,954 kCalories

July 2012: 65 activities, 725 km, 53 hours of training, 31,983 kCalories

August 2012: 34 activities, 563 km, 35 hours of training, 21,903 kCalories

So over the last 6 months I've run, cycled or swum over 2.4 Million metres and used up close to 100,000 kCalories - about the equivalent of 413 Mars Bars...