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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