I just spent 6 hours running at the gym and somewhat regret it

The Saddleworth Santa Dash- a 5km run through leafy Oldham’s outreaches featuring 500 people in Santa suits- should be back this December. As much as I’ve spent my life hammering the gym, I find running to be the one thing I struggle with the most, so I figured, from this point on I’ll add a short, fast-paced run into my regular gym session.

Fast and short means your heart rate will spike and lower, meaning you’re putting your cardio system under more pressure than you would in one longer run. This in turn means, in theory, more of an attack into your fat reserves.

As a small experiment, I figured I’d stock myself up on porridge this morning and spend the day at the gym, repeating the same 14km/ph run for as long as I can (usually a couple of minutes) with a short break for sit-ups in between. The plan was to get my weight down from 88kg (2kg down from the other day, at least) to, ideally, 79.9.

Why 14km/ph? Back in my early 30s I spent a year or so fitting in 10-min runs in every gym session. I started at 7kmph and increased the speed by .1km/ph each session. I managed to get up to 14.1km/ph before going to Ibiza in 2013, I think, and- unsurprisingly- my cardio has never been the same since.

Today I started at 10:30 am with a 10-minute cross trainer warm-up, then a short abs workout. Then I jumped onto the treadmill and started running. The first few runs, when I still had the strength, I managed 3 mins. Very quickly, though, my stamina drained and the runs were getting shorter and shorter, until I couldn’t last 60 seconds. I ended at 4:30pm. I couldn’t see any difference on the manual scales in the gym. They have normally got electronic, but I couldn’t find them on this day. (That said, I’m realising that at 39 my eyesight is shot to shit.)

So. This was a dumb idea and I don’t recommend it. However, I’ll still be mixing in a 14km/ph run to each session I do between now and the possible return of the Santa Dash in around 3 months’ time.