5000 Hits

Sometime today I got the 5000th hit on my blog. I’m a little awed to tell you the truth. Just a little blog of me dribbling on about my sad failed attempts to lose weight, and 5000 of you, with too much time on your hands, have visited and read. Just kidding about the time. I really appreciate all the support you’ve given me, both in comments and emails, and just by visiting. When I stuff it up, I feel like I’m letting all of you down too, not just myself. Doesn’t seem to be making much difference though. Perhaps a few more comments…hint, hint, so I could put some virtual ‘faces’ to my readership.

Today was a case in point. First day back at work and it was s****y. My office mates are off for the rest of the week, as are my clients, but I couldn’t take it easy and relax because we are on the clock and I have to account for every 15 minutes of my day. Talk about dragging. Plus, the day was just generally horrible. Cold and wet and miserable. And stories of atrocities on the morning news that made me cry in my car for humanity. Overall, a rough day, and I felt really angry at the world. So I hit back. With chocolate cake and peking aromatic crispy duck. Take that, world!

I counted points till lunchtime then gave it up as a bad job. I did just do a very high-intensity 20-minute interval training workout that involved a bit of jogging, which was cool. Throwing bad knees and five stone excess weight to the wind. I got this one from an old issue of Shape magazine. For those of you who want to try something different. I did mine on the treadmill, but you could do it on any piece of cardio equipment. Theoretically, you could also do it without equipment, but it would be a bit harder to monitor the intervals.

Activity	Time (mins)	Speed (mph)	Incline	RPE (1–10)
Warm Up	0:00–4:00	3.5	1.0	3
Interval 1	4:00–5:00	7.5–6.0*	1.0	8
Recovery	5:00–6:00	3.5	1.0	3–4
Interval 2	6:00–7:00	8.0–6.5*	1.0	9
Recovery	7:00–8:00	3.5	1.0	3–4
Interval 3	8:00–9:00	8.5–7.0*	1.0	9–10
Recovery	9:00–10:00	3.5	1.0	3–4
Intervals 4–6 (repeat mins 8–10 x3)	10:00–16:00	3.5–8.5	1.0	3–10
Cool Down	16:00–20:00	3.5	1.0	3

* Reduce the speed by 0.5 mph every 15 seconds.

This was how the workout appeared, but obviously you can change it for your own needs following the RPE (rate of perceived exertion guidelines). Instead of miles per hour, I used the same numbers with kilometers per hour. But I like the idea of starting faster and easing off in 15 second intervals, rather than working up to the hardest speed. If you’re not familiar with the RPE scale for gauging the intensity of workouts, you can check it out here.

Anyway, that’s about all for tonight. I will try and be a better BBG tomorrow. ‘night all, and thanks for popping by.