Hello all,
My name is Paul and I am into keep fit, gym, weight training, etc. About 20 years ago I had a superb state of fitness as I used to endurance race karts and had a keen interest in weight lifting. Well I over done it and got a hernia in the groin and promtly stopped the lot. I never really got back into it again untill about a year ago.
I was leaning down strapping down a car on our rolling road one day and found it a struggle to get up. This sort of thing kinda creeps up on you over the years and I remembered how fit and agile I used to be and doing something like strapping a car down would never have been a struggle... atall. As I am approaching 40 I thought I really must do something about it while I can.
A call to my old presonal trainer had me training with her again 3 times a week. For the first couple of weeks, I was shocked by how much my stamina and strength had deteriorated. Hey, I'm a mechanic, lifting heavy stuff around being very active and on my feet all day long, but with only being 5'8" and 15stone with just over 30% body fat (I seemed to hide that extremely well) I was kidding myself.
Progress has come along way. My HR raises much slower, stays lower and recovers much better now. I feel much better also and my body fat is hovering around the still high 21-23%. My weight has also hovered around the 14stone mark now. Because I seem to have plataued I have taken up running over the last couple of months.
Again, I was suprised how hard the 4.5 miles were and how heavy I felt. I took a 4 mile run with my trainer and initially I felt comfortable over the first mile, but I soon tightened up, I rested a few times to stretch as I was having lower back pain and pain in my glutes which suggested maybe I wasn't keeping my posture right and also my ham strings were tight. My knees also took a pounding which also confirms I need to loose more weight. During this first run, my trainer decided to see what I was made of and after 2 miles of running told me to do some interval stuff.... Sprint 100 m then walk 200 m, repeat 10 times. I only managed 6! But I was impressed with my sprint speed with my trainer just about keeping up for the first few sprints.
Boy, after that training session, didn't I pay the price with my quads!
It took about 2 weeks for them to recover. Any awkward movement would hurt them again.
I havn't repeated that program since, but I intend to soon. Instead, I ran 2 mile runs with a couple of stops for rest/recovery. I kept this up over the last few weeks untill I was able to run the whole 2 miles (WOW
) with no stop. This I done in 16/17 minutes, which I am pleased with. My knees felt good too, although I have had sharp pains now and again in them from time to time for a few days after the run. This has been getting better. On the back of that, I decided to go for the 4.5mile run again. I decided to run at a slower pace and managed 4 miles in 43/44 minutes when I stopped to rest my lower back. My back was hurting as I was hauling alot of weight around earlier that day and I really should have rested it before the run. I walked the last half mile.
I was encouraged that I suffered no problems atall after that run and also I had the feeling of being able to run forever.
The only problem I find when running on my own is that I tend to want to run too fast. I kinda feel intimidated as others can see me lol. I know that shouldnt affect anything, and its something I have almost overcome.
My goal is to run a half marathon in a pretty quick time and to use running to build stamina.
I hope thats a good insight to my training and what I am about. Any comments or recomendations would be greatly recieved
Paul.
I'll be moving to just down the road from you in Bath v soon!
Morning Hrun 
Thats me 
