oxygen

Well here's something I don't do every day of the week.. in fact the last time I did do it was 12 years ago now...

At the begining of this fresh new season of running adventures, I thought it would be interesting to find out what my VO2max was and how it compared to 2001. I was reasonably fit back at university, running 69 minutes for a half, but I can now see that I probably drank too much ale and absorbed their liquid content with too much curry, kebabs and take-out mexican food. I even remember at the time - the sports scientists who undertook my testing at the University of Bath suggested that I shed a few pounds to get up the fells in a more speedy manner.

So, 12 years on, ale replaced by wine (mainly), kebabs replaced by olives (ha ha, yeah right), I'm now 5kg lighter and my VO2max has risen quite a bit as well. So in theory I can run up and down hills faster, thus burning more calories and hence providing ample excuse for a good pie and a pint afterwards.. hang on a minute....

Enough rambling, here's the stats:

And what can one do with all this knowledge. Well you can apparently gauge your potential over various distances courtesy of this table:

ref: http://www.moorestownxc.org/Training/JackDaniels.html

...and finally if you have nine minutes with not a lot to do, here's a video of Wednesday's amusement in Toulon. Kindly put together by the people at Streetstepper.fr - nice one!