Temporary blog to chart the Wizard's attempt to lose two and a half stones by September 1st.
http://greenwizardpublishing.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/losing-two-and-half-stones.html
Day Forty Six: Thursday 24th July (cont) AM: Weight Training.
Yay. :-( I managed thirty minutes before the boredom got to me. Some people love weights. You see them in there, happy as clams. They love it - its almost social for them - but I just can't see it. Next weights? Sunday evening before social sauna. PM: Spinning. 17 girls and me. I managed to keep up for 45 minutes - a punishing, whole body, super stamina session. Followed it up with thirty minutes in the sauna. Terrific feeling afterwards... Here's another run out for the sauna sketch, from underrated, where-are-they-now sketch show comedians Hale and Pace. Love it...
Day Forty Seven: Friday 25th AM: X-Trainer/Treadmill. Approximately 1000 calories expended. Great sprint finish and an easy 26 minute 5k. Not fast, I know, but faster than I am used to. Day Forty Eight: Saturday 26th Day Forty Nine: Sunday 27th Rest days. I did manage the sauna last night, but I was so hungover following the Halifax day out that I was incapable of moving for most of the day. So that's a rare two rest days. Day Fifty: Monday 28th I celebrated the half century with a seven miler, down past the racecourse, round Rolleston, down the banks of the Trent and up past Fiskerton station into Southwell. A warm day and I did it in good time, possibly the fastest run I have achieved? I don't know - it felt good. My head and stomach are still ropey.
PM: 7.5 k X-Trainer/Run. Exhausted and in pain. Also lacking any motivation, so I listened to my body and finished. About 500 calories expended.
Tiggy Wiggy destroyed a decent Newbury Super Sprint field and put herself in line for the Nunthorpe
Day Forty Two: Sunday 21st July
PM: Left my legs alone and in the evening, gave myself a full upper body workout, something I really enjoyed.
Lots of core work. Very few people in the gym and I took full advantage. Then saw the gang in the sauna and boiled myself like a lobster for an hour. Enjoyed this much more than yesterday and felt great after.
Day Forty Three: Monday 21st July
PM: A much much better session in the cardio room, with a 10k blast culminating in a HR of 166 and a 16kmh sprint for two mins, the fastest I have run over that time. The sauna is never as much fun after a run as it is after weights. Feel back in the groove.
The weather was like something out of a Hemingway novel; humid, hot and capable of creating an all over body sheen, a car wash beneath your shirt. I was on BB business today and I was compelled to wear my summer suit for the first time in a year and a half.
Here's me commemorating the last day of FOPP on Queen Street. Luckily it is moving, rather than closing. Love FOPP Day Forty Four: Tuesday 22nd July Afternoon: A brilliant cycle along the Trail to Bilsthorpe. It's around 15 miles there and back and on the way there, I took my time, enjoying the sights and sounds of an English Summer day. And it was hot too - humid and very, very sunny. I saw the above slogan painted on a disused railway bridge about a mile from Bilsthorpe. On the way back, I hit my stride and took me half the time. I can't explain why that happened - but there were moments of speedy joy which I am aching to repeat next week. Evening: An hour on the weights. Really struggled. I find weight training boring and always have done. Running is all about motion and momentum, the quest for rhythm, the search for that perfect moment where you lose yourself absolutely inside your own thoughts and your body floats along. Cycling too, but not so much. Weight training just doesn't do it for me and each session is a chore, a payment, a cost.
It doesn't help that I cannot do anything interesting, like shoulder press, because of my long term neck muscle problem. Nor can I carry out the old posing standby, the bicep curl, because of weakness around my elbows. Boo to weight training...too much like hard work. Day Forty Five: Wednesday 23rd July AM: A run to Farnsfield and back along the trail. Approximately 11 miles, perfectly flat. I also ran half a mile there (though not back). Hot day - perhaps too hot for running (drank two pints of water before I left).
So eleven and a half miles without stopping for the first time since November 2012. And this morning (Thursday), I don't feel too bad. I wonder whether I can try Bilsthorpe and back next week in prep for the Nottingham run? That would be a flat 15 miles... Day Forty Six: Thursday 24th July AM: Weight Training.
It's not that I lay about last week, watching my videos of Zenyatta, Frankel, Dancing Brave, Zilzal, Giant's Causeway etc, while smoking fat ones and eating pepperoni stuffed crust pizza.
Actually, with a friend, I walked 30 miles and did two 11k X-Trainer/Treadmill sessions. I was pretty active in hindsight. However, I ate like a bar steward, including a giant Toby Carvery and - if it were possible - an even bigger kebab. A kebab the size of a cat's surfboard stuffed with everything they tell you not to eat including chips. Incredibly, two fat onion bhajis found their way onto my overflowing plate, like two little kids scared of the dark creeping into mum and dad's bad at night. So, I decided to bail out the challenge for a week. I started again last night with another 12.5 k cardio session while watching Countryfile*, followed by an hour in the sauna. And tonight...
Day Twenty Nine : Monday 7th July 2014 I did the same thing on the X-Trainer and Treadmill while attempting to avoid Corro and East Enders. So that's 24k and about 2000 calories. I am going to do this.
Mantra
I successfully packed in smoking. I successfully rid myself of the biggest cancerous influence on my life ever in 2002/3 I successfully stopped seriously drinking in 2007. I will definitely reach the 13st 8lb mark by September 1st. I am completely determined to do so and will reach it even if I have to starve myself like some sixth century Benedictine Monk before the visit of the Holy Roman Emperor. You just watch me. Mantra Over
Tomorrow morning: weights (yawn - might go for a run up the trail). Day Thirty : Tuesday 8th July 2014 PM: 12.5k on X-Trainer and treadmill. Approximately 1000 calories expended. Day Thirty One : Wednesday 9th July 2014 Rest day. Went to see Transformers with Mattster and followed it up with a huge buffet at the May Sum. Day Thirty Two : Thursday 10th July 2014 AM: Train run. Probably 7 miles. I need to map that and count it but I am struggling as the trail is a natural formation rather than a road. A tough start, but completed. Day Thirty Three : Friday 11th July 2014 Day Thirty Four: Saturday 12th July 2014 Friday: Orgy of drinking first with James Walker of Left Lion discussing books, literature and the whole gamut outside the Orange Tree in Notts. I was planning on going to the gym and sauna in the evening, but some evenings are just too good to pass up. I didn't eat. Saturday: York Races with the Notts lot. Limitless beer and no exercise. Not a problem as I had planned this well in advance and stayed off the grub too. I don't have an issue with beer bellies so if I drank like I did in 2004/2005, I would be twelve stone because I just don't do the double: I drink or eat. Day Thirty Five: Sunday 13th July 2014 Hangover which would fell a moose. AM:First cycle of the year to my mother's place in Radcliffe. 28 miles, an hour each way. PM: Gym and sauna. I quite enjoyed weight training tonight. Not something I can always say. Day Thirty Six: Monday 14th July 2014 PM: 10k x-trainer and Interval session on the treadmill. Tried the sauna but felt sick and left before I puked on the coals, which is far worse than the usual Eucalyptus oils spread upon there. Day Thirty Seven: Tuesday 15th July 2014 Afternoon: Cycle to Newark and back. Approximately sixteen miles. Day Thirty Eight: Wednesday 16th July 2014 Ran the longest distance since the Worksop Marathon. 12 miles (ish). Down the Trail all the way to Farnsfield, which is about 6.1 miles. Then down towards the back of Farnsfield Village and back to Southwell, on the Mansfield Road, past Edingley and Halam. It was a scorching day. By the time I reached Halam on the homeward leg, I was inverting the laws of space and time by running backwards, such was the pinnacle of sloth I achieved. When faced with Halam Hill (a horror), I could not face it and that was the end of the run, though I did attempt some sprints on the backend near the old Council Estate. I did not take on enough water and spent the next day ill. Day Thirty Nine: Thursday 17th July 2014 AM: Light weight session. Could hardly move my legs. was going to cycle to Mum's, but there was no chance of that. Day Forty: Friday 18th July 2014 AM: 10k treadmill/x-trainer. Hit 153 heart rate on the treadmill at 14.3 km/h. Too my knowledge, I have never achieved that before. It's the fourth best work rate setting the machine records. I'm getting there. :-)
