As we had to postpone yesterdays attempt at a 90 minute run due to the lack of an Asthma inhaler, we did it today.

The plan was to use the route I had planned back on Saturday using www.mapmyrun.co.uk

Actually things went better to start with than I thought they would and we made good progress at just under 10 minute mile pace.

We ran all the way down to the floating harbour in the centre of Bristol (and managed to run some of the route for the Bristol half marathon which is now only 4 and a half weeks away).

As we made our way back home and started coming in to more high street areas the running got a little difficult.

Now I’m all for dodging and weaving in and out of people on the streets when I’m fresh and light footed but to do so in the 9^th mile of a nine mile run is a little much for me.

Finally as we approached home and I thought of where we were supposed to go next, I decided to change the route.  We were supposed to run past our house and on for about another half a mile loop, but we both could not face the soul destroying thought of running past home so we detoured of and added a few extra roads into the current loop.

Finally we headed for home and I crossed ‘my’ start finish line at 1 hour 30 mins and 2 seconds.  Pretty spot on timing.

I then stretched out, showered and preceded to go back to the map my run website to see if I had actually done the nine miles we had hoped to cover.

About 30 minutes later (I went right down so each click of the map only moved me 20 meters or so) I found out that we were just a fraction away from the planned 9 miles.  We had actually covered 8.87 miles.

That is actually the furthest I have ever run and it was fairly tiring (understatement of the year).

As I had 2 rest days in a row, tomorrow is supposed to be back to the strength circuit, but I’ll need to see how I feel first.

Get your own half marathon blueprint here.

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Today I did the submaximal test I said I would (this is not part of the half marathon blueprint, but is a test I do with a lot of my clients in my facility.

I took it from an American College of Exercise text book I had and is a pretty reliable way of measuring your fitness level. You end up with a figure, similar to what you would be given if you were to do it in a physiology laboratory.

So here it is:

Walk a mile as fast as you can, making sure it remains a walk and is submaximal (which means you do not get to a point where you feel you need to stop).

You also need to know your age, sex, weight and heart rate at the end of the mile. Along with your time to completion, these need to be added into a calculation.

Age: 34
Weight: 217 lbs
Sex: Male
Time to complete mile: 13:48
Heart rate: 158

So here’s the calculation.

132.853
-Weight x 0.0769
-Age x 0.3877
+ 6.315 Sex (If male x1, if female x 0)
-Time x 3.2649
-Heart rate x 0.1565

132.853
- 217 x 0.0769 = 16.69
-34 x 0.3877 = 13.18
+ 6.315 (I’m male)
-13.8* x 3.2649 = 45
-158 x 0.1565 = 24.7

= 39.6 mmol per kg per min (don’t worry about the units), I’ll put it in perspective in a moment.

*13.8 is calculated by: 13 mins x 60 secs + 48 = 828 divided by 60 (seconds) = 13.8

So my fitness level is 39.6 which is woefully low, I told you I wasn’t aerobically fit at the moment. The highest I’ve had was a few years ago and was 55.

To give you more perspective here what you might expect some Athletes/General public to be.

30 Average
35 Above average
40 Good (should be the minimum most people attain to reach)
45-55 Excellent
55-65 Rugby, football, basket ball, tennis etc
65-75 Endurance athletes (amateur and professional)
75-85 Elite athletes (Marathon runners, Tour de France competitors etc)

After I completed this test I went on to do my 3 mile running session with the middle mile being a flat out mile where I noted the time I completed it in.

I did this mile in 7 mins and 30 secs and will use this in later running sessions to help me run at a certain pace and will eventually help me with setting the correct running pace on the day.

So there we have it, I’m officially far more aerobically unfit than I thought and look forward to showing you how my training programme will improve these figures, as well as get me fit enough to complete the half marathon.

Don’t forget you can download the exact programme I am following by **clicking here**

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Over the years I have been a fitness coach I have worked with individuals in many different sports. Many of my clients would come to me over the last 10 years and have asked me to help them get through the training for a half marathon.

Whilst I had never run a half marathon, I was pretty good at getting my clients really good results. That has all changed now as I am completing one in just 9 weeks time.

My experience of writing programs and getting people ‘ready’ in short spaces of time led me to write my specific 9 week half marathon blueprint.

What you’ll find is a complete copy of my training programme which you can download and follow – it’s the one I’m going to be doing for the next 9 weeks and reporting on here.

Now as I said, I have never run a half marathon before. Whilst I am relatively fit, I am in no way a regular runner and that type of training makes up a very small part of my training at the moment.

So the story so far is it’s day 1 and according to my blueprint, that’s a rest day!

Tomorrow I have a resistance circuit workout to do.

So I’ll report back tomorrow.

Remember you can download your own free programme by ** Clicking here **

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