After dragging my weight down from a Mirtazipine-induced 90kg to a drug-free 72kg, I allowed myself a few cheat meals. 2 months on and I’m now back up to 77kg. This can’t go on, or I’ll be back at top weight, even without antidepressants. And that’s, well, depressing.
This week I made an attempt to burn off fat in one long endurance project at the gym. This time, my plan was to start at 14.1kph on the treadmill, something I could do for 10 minutes a decade ago. (Then I went to Ibiza. Make of that what you will.) I wanted to perform a series of runs,with abs work in between, each time bringing the speed down until the pace was comfortable enough for me to run for 10 full minutes.
On Thursday 12th I got into the gym just after lunchtime, after a long sleep and a hearty breakfast. I was 77.6kg. I warmed up on the cross trainer for 10 mins. Then I did some abs. Then I started running. Here are the speeds and lengths of time I could run before gassing out:
14.1kph 5:00
14.0kph 4:00
13.9kph 3:00
13.8kph 3:15
13.7kph 3:00
13.6kph 3:15
13.5kph 3:15
13.4kph 3:15
13.3kph 3:30
13:2kph 2:30
13.1kph 2:30
13.0kph 2:45
12.9kph 3:00 (Here I started to feel a slight twinge in the outside of my left knee)
12.8kph 3:00 (At this point I knew something wasn’t right with my knee and I didn’t want to push it. The back of my right knee was also starting to hurt and my car was a 5 minute walk away from the gym, up a hill. With age comes wisdom. This 40-year-old called it a day.)
I left the gym weighing 76.8kg. I lost 800g in 4 hours. Pathetic.
But whatever. I’d been meaning to try this particular workout to see how slow I’d have to run to do so for the full 10 mins. It seems I’d have to do 1 run per session if I want to keep my knees in working order to find this out. But then, the results of each of these runs would be better as I’d have more recovery time (usually at least a day).
I may try that.
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