Day 18 – Exercise revisited

Or The Incredible Speed of 6000

Following the debacle of the first lockdown run, I’ve been getting better at exercising and doing small circuits of the garden Chez nous.

Some upper body weights, some online core and HIIT classes, the occasional run, a bit of cardio up and down the steps. It’s mostly been great. I’m actually feeling pretty good.

There are a few things that still need sorting out though.

This was yesterday’s workout:

Not bad. Decent figures. That distance isn’t correct though – the first run was measured on GPS and sold me short. This one relied on my steps and probably overestimated by a couple of kilometres. But this was all about heart rate and time, not about distance.

It wasn’t about speed, either. And that was a pity:

How do you like them apples?
What’s up, Usain? Can’t keep up, petal?

Yes. My maximum speed was 91.9kph. A speed I haven’t managed to achieve since heading back from Agulhas a couple of years weeks ago.

I’m faster than I look. Weird though – I don’t remember my face being dragged off my skull by the sheer, brute force of massive acceleration next to the pool. And Christ only knows what the braking distance is for that sort of speed. I’m surprised that I didn’t collide with a wall somewhere. My garden really isn’t that big.

There’s one other issue. Timing.

I’ve been timing my workouts by song. As in:

I’ll just do two more songs and then I’ll get a beer.

And when you know that you’ve only got one last song, you put in every ounce of effort you can. And then that last song turns out to be the 12 extended player of some 160bpm dancefloor remix by the Pet Shop Boys. And you very nearly die.

For 9½ minutes.

For the record though, the Pet Shop Boys are really good for getting you going while you’re exercising. Yesterday’s dance version of Love is a Bourgeois Construct got me up to almost 92kph.

Powerful stuff.