{"id":11,"date":"2021-08-31T16:00:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-31T15:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/?p=11"},"modified":"2023-01-07T17:43:37","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T17:43:37","slug":"getting-started-and-dog-days-of-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/2021\/08\/31\/getting-started-and-dog-days-of-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"August 2021 – Dog Days of Summer"},"content":{"rendered":"

1st August 2021, The Concept 2 Row Erg finally arrived, the assembly was quick and straightforward, time to see if I could still remember how to row.<\/p>\n

It turns out I could remember how to row, but that as expected I was horrifically out of shape, had a gut that was in the way and had zero stamina.<\/p>\n

My first 2000m test on 02\/08\/2021 was 9:28.2 at an average of 17 strokes per minute (spm) which equates to 2:22.1 per 500m pace and I almost died doing it, this would place me in the 11th percentile for heavyweight men in the 50-59 age group.<\/p>\n

The only occasion I could think of where my rowing had actually gone worse was on a holiday in March 2006 when we went to Las Vegas and I used the rowing machine in the gym, rowed 2000m and then did a 500m ‘sprint’ and almost blacked out afterwards.<\/p>\n

I also tried a 500m sprint and managed 2:02 at a stroke rate of 25spm, this would place me in the 20th percentile.<\/p>\n

I had another go the following day and achieved 9:03.5 (2:15.9 pace) and while I knocked 25 seconds off the time, I was still practically unable to breathe by the end, and my heart rate was at 165, this brought me into the 17th percentile.<\/p>\n

I noticed that there was a challenge on the Concept 2 website<\/a> for August called ‘Dog Days of Summer<\/a>‘ which involved rowing 10,000m in week 1, 20,000m in week 2, 30,000m in week 3 and 40,000m in week 4 and thought this would be a good challenge and ease me back into rowing.<\/p>\n

I had a break for a day, then on the 5th rowed my first 5000m at 27:01.8, 19spm which placed me in the 4th percentile!<\/p>\n

I also tried another 500m and managed 1:50.1 at 32spm which placed me in the 29th percentile<\/p>\n

Baby steps would be required if I did not want to end up in an ambulance having collapsed with a heart attack.<\/p>\n

I finished off the week with a second 5K at 25:49.1 and 20spm which had moved me up to the 6th percentile.<\/p>\n

With week 1 complete and I was still alive, 20k to look forward to which was still possible without needing to go above 5K on any given day and still have a few days rest.<\/p>\n

Something else I thought I would try was skipping, I bought a thin wire skipping rope with weighted handles and gave it a try.<\/p>\n

My first effort was about 500 jumps in a time of 7:09 which burnt 151 calories, my next attempt a few days later was just over 1000 jumps in a time of 13:11 which burnt 297 calories.<\/p>\n

Apart from proving that I was not very good at skipping, the wire rope was also pretty good at whipping me in the arm every time I missed a jump.<\/p>\n

3 x 5K, one just short of 1K and another just short of 5K and that was week 2 complete, my best 5K for the week was 23:26.3, 23spm and moved me up to the 17th percentile.<\/p>\n

Progress was being seen and a goal was in sight.<\/p>\n

Week 3 at 30K, involved my first 10K at 47:34.7 which placed me in the 14th percentile, and 4 x 5K rows, the best of which was 22:01.0 which moved me up to the 31st percentile.<\/p>\n

Week 4 at 40K, involved a variety of random distances but included 2 x 10K rows, neither of which improved on my time from the previous week.<\/p>\n

So that was over 100,000 metres and my first challenge completed, for which I received a certificate from Concept 2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

During the month of August I managed a total of 63 hours of exercise, walked 349km climbed 226 flights of stairs, cycled 21km and rowed 135km.<\/p>\n

By the end of the month my weight was 16 Stone 4lb (228lb\/103kg)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1st August 2021, The Concept 2 Row Erg finally arrived, the assembly was quick and straightforward, time to see if I could still remember how to row. It turns out I could remember how to row, but that as expected I was horrifically out of shape, had a gut that was in the way and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":988,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11\/revisions\/988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/fitness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}