It has been a long time since I was last in any kind of ‘keep fit’ process. In fact the last time I did anything with any gusto was back in 2005 for the York Bikeathon for Leukaemia Research which was linked to Geoff Thomas’ Le Tour fundraising event.
Over the years I have had spurts of mainly gym activity however never a sustained effort beyond a few months. No excuses, although I do enjoy the gym it just does not excite me enough to keep a sustained regime.
So, here we are again. A real target to hit with my Pennine Way Challenge and knowledge getting fitter than I am (which is a low base to start from!) is only going to help.
The key for me is to have the stamina to walk 14-16 miles up hill and down vale pretty much every day for three weeks to cover the 270 miles.
On top of this on certain days I will be carrying a decent sized and weighted backpack to cover some wild camping. Whilst this will not be every day I certainly need to be ready for it, so some core and upper body strength is required.
I am a believer that you can ‘walk yourself fit’ and if I had the time would happily go out and walk a few hours every day.
Unfortunately time does not allow me to do this so it is back to the gym.
With the snow of the festive period gone my new regime in Galtres gym has taken shape.
Monday evenings is a tough session with a good 75 minutes of aerobic machine work on cross trainers, running machines, rowing machines and bikes followed by a session of weights with good friend ‘let’s do weights’ Simon! Definitely the hardest session of the week.
Wednesday onwards is then in for early morning 60 minute aerobic workouts. If you had told me a few weeks ago I would be in a gym at 7:30am on a morning I would have outwardly laughed!
However, here we are and it feels good!
Not only can I see progress every day in the gym but I have to say it really sets you up for the day and does not take anything out of it.
It looks like a by product of this is going to be some weight loss. Now whilst this is not my main aim I could certainly do with seeing a couple of stone disappear!
So hopefully in the next few weeks you will start to visually see a re-sculpting from packhorse to mountain goat! 🙂
So, whilst I will be physically walking the Pennine Way in June the challenge for me has already started and it’s a 6 month one, and after that let’s just see what happens…
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