I have been experimented upon

I should have told you - if only sportstracker hadn't broken down, last Sunday I managed a 2 hour 15 minute run, on very hilly terrain. I think you can piece together the run from the following sportstracker outputs:



This was a monster run, roughly 9 or 10 miles. It was slow because of the very hilly nature of the terrain. After this, I have to be prepared for the distance of the Great North Run, which is now only a week away.

I have managed only one run in the intervening week - an inadvisable 40 minute run at dusk in Sea Palling.

Just to nail my colours to the mast, I am aiming for 2 hours 20 in the Great North Run. I am prepared to accept 2 25, but 2 30 would be a bit disappointing. Please donate now to make me push myself beyond the limit! Although not past the limit that where good people die.

I've just come back from another long drive, this time to Newcastle to have my mass, volume, composition, breathing, efficiency, and anaerobic threshold measured, all in the name of science.

I have lost just under a stone, with all of this being fat. My body fat is still horrendous, but lower now, at 37.9% from 41.2%. I now know that by rights my body consumes 1600kcal/day, so I have a target and a reason to count the calories.

The point at which I stop burning fat and begin to primarily burn carbs (anaerobic threshold, in terms that I understand it) has increased from a heart rate of 86 to a heart rate of 139. This means that I now almost only burn fat when I exercise, and this was by no means the case at the beginning.

I have almost tripled the amount of O2 I can consume before this point is reached, and yet my heart is still actually beating at the same rate, meaning that it has simply increased in size. The whole heart/lung complex is bigger than it was, with my lung capacity having gone from 89 to 103 (no idea what these units are though). Just sitting down for two hours, I burnt 20% more calories than I did 20 weeks ago. I am a machine!

I have never been fitter than this. I still need to lose two and a half stone though before I can begin to think about being vain.