Five miles

My office has a gym on the ground floor and whilst it is devoid of any decent equipment, particularly for someone who enjoys throwing around heavy iron, it has enough to keep in shape and more importantly, it is free. There are three treadmills, two stationary bikes, two cross-trainers (it is my opinion that these are useless for developing good cardio) and one rowing machine. There is a selection of resistance machines: adductor machine, lat pulldown, preacher curl, seated shoulder press, pec deck, seated chest press and hamstring curl. Although there is good resistance on all of these machines (I can probably lift about 75% of each of the stacks; considerably less on the hamstring curl and pec deck), I am a firm believer in using free weights where possible. This is where the biggest problem with the work gym lies: the dumbells only go up to 15kg and there are set barbells, the heaviest of which is 35kg. I have had to squat for high repetitions with the 35kg which is something that I hate doing. At my previous Bannatyne gym there was a squat rack where I could regularly squat 100kg plus, so getting used to this has been frustrating.

Today I finished my work earlier than Pri and feeling tired decided to hit the gym before she was ready. It is normal practice for me to run for 20 minutes at 7.5mph which is 8 minute mile pace. I cover 4km over this time, although sometimes if I am feeling energetic that day I will up this to 5km in 25 minutes. After I have finished my run I then lift weights for a further half an hour before showering and either returning to my desk to finish some work or going straight home.

I detest running. I wish that there was some other way to get a hard body but there simply is not. I have found over the years that it is an essential part of maintaining core fitness. Every elite athlete runs several times a week. Today I felt quite strong during my run. Pri joined me on the adjacent treadmill after I had been running for eighteen and a half minutes, intending to run for twenty minutes herself. I had only wanted to run 25 minutes today, although I decided to run alongside for at least ten minutes. Yesterday was her first gym session since she returned from Australia and she only managed sixteen minutes at 5mph. I thought that I would stay on the treadmill a little longer to motivate her. However, after another ten minutes I still felt good so I decided to push on. Previously the longest I had run on a treadmill at this pace was 32 minutes (4 miles) before getting too fatigued and out of breath. As I passed the 32 minute mark my legs felt tired, although my breathing was not laboured. 4Music's Top 10 Biggest Tracks was on the television at this point, which was a welcome distraction from my tiredness. "Rudeboy" by Rihanna was number 10, followed by "I Got You" by Leona Lewis at number 9. There was an advert break after Leona's video during which I completed my forty minutes. For the last minute I increased the speed to 10mph to make sure that I hit the five mile mark just shy of forty minutes: 39 minutes and 57 seconds which is a new personal best for me. I burned 581 calories.

That was the only exercise I did today. I was too tired to lift weights afterwards and I went home shortly after. I celebrated by consuming eight chocolate toffee crisp bites from Sainsbury after I had finished my nutritious meal of trout fillets and brocolli.