Gym update 17th July

Hey peeps, thought I'd give a short update to the masses on my progress a la gym.  It's not been so bad so far, I was initially planning on going every weekday when I first started but as I've quickly learned my body needs time to recover, plus it causes a detrimental effect to the next session, so there.

So yeah, been able to go 3 times a week since starting.  Treadmill-wise I believe I have made great progress on the long term goal I set myself when I started, that being to be able to run/jog a mile and a half in 12mins or less.  The first time I went I ran just a mile in 15mins just to see where I was at.  The next session I moved the distance up to a mile and a half, I believe, I ran that the first time in about 18mins, and since then I've been slashing my PB since then.  As of the 17th, my PB stands at 12:21, which I'm pretty chuffed at considering the short time period in which I've been going.  I'm thinking at the next session, which is booked for Thursday, I should make an attempt at my first time under 12mins.  I actually find the treadmill easier to run faster than, say round a field.  The treadmill carries you to a certain extent, and being able to explicitly control your pace, is something I don't have the discipline to do outdoors.

As I may have mentioned I also jog to and from the gym.  This is usually the distance from one end of the school field, where I start, to the point where I reach the point on the playground which is close to the sports centre entrance.  I timed this the day before I went to the gym just to see what time I would have to leave the house in order to reach the start of the session in time.  Anyways, it's about a min and a half at a temperate jog.  The weird thing is, no doubt down to adrenalin, is the fact that I actually the return leg a lot faster than the initial one.  I even found myself singing along to Sparta, but more about that later.

Weights wise, I have definitely improved upon the initial weights I was using a few weeks back.  The leg press I've improved substantially, no doubt from this extra running I've been doing :D.  Anyways, I think I started on about 10 (they measure only these weights in numbers), and now I'm on about 16-17, which works out at about 150-60kg when consulting their conversion chart thingy.  The max weight is about 220kg on the stack I believe.  As Mike asked, the real only judge of weight training is how much can I bench LOL.  When I started, I worked quickly up to 35kg, finding that challenging enough to form a good basis from.  After a couple of sessions I moved up probs more comfortably than  was expected to 40kg.  As of yesterday's session, I have moved up to 45kg, which only starts to get really really tough towards the end of the hour workout, when I've lifted/ran/rowed/pushed god knows how much.  But yeah I'm really chuffed with the progress I've been making.  There's this one hardcore guy who I've shared one session with who is all about the weight training - particularly the benching.  He is on 80kg so fair play to him - maybe I should feel embarassed when I moved his peg to 40kg, but everyone has to start somewhere.

 

After yesterday's session, I went, as per usual, to book myself in for the next session.  The guy behind the desk let me do it myself, and he noticed my Warwick Uni hoodie I was wearing.  He asked me how long I'd been there, to which I replied that I had finished, graduated last June.  He then asked me what did I study, offering media, and then sport before I could answer.  I'm not too sure what his thinking was behind those suggestions, perhaps that I was more likely to do the subjects cos I was going to the gym, or what my initial reckoning was that he thought I was a bit stupid and not very academically minded.  Well I finally replied "Computer Science" and that shut him up. By this time I had finished booking myself so I promptly left, feeling a slight sense of victory, and then preceded to do some singing while I ran home LOL.