Close Season

My season finished less than two weeks ago and I'm already bored. Presentation night for the Sunday league in which I referee, was held on Friday. I drank a lot of beer, had a lot of people say hello and got home very very late. I am just beginning to feel normal after that little escapade.

I started my pre-season training this morning after signing up to a Peak time usage package at the local sports centre. Within 15 minutes I was going through my induction and within 30 minutes I was on a treadmill.

When I trained before (following a separation/divorce in 2000) I started training seriously to lose weight and improve my own self esteem. It worked as I initially lost 20Kg in weight before piling on muscle. When I stopped training, the muscle got flabby, I piled on fat and now find myself weighing more than 105Kg. This has undoubtedly contributed to some of the muscle pains and strains I have suffered throughout the last season. So this year, I'm going to train, lose around 10-15Kg and get back in shape.

The first session wasn't too bad, I started with a target of 10 minutes at 10Km/h on the treadmill but managed 3 minutes before I felt uncomfortable, so I stopped. I then completed 10 minutes on the cross trainer at intensity level 10 (of 25) before cycling for 10 minutes. All throughout this training I got my heart to an average of 147 bpm which is around 83% of my recommended maximum and well within the 55-90% window which is optimum. I finished off with a short stretch on the rowing machine before managing 1m 15s at 12.5Km/h on the treadmill again.

My target is to manage 12 minutes at 12.5Km/h by Christmas and to maintain that level of fitness. That hopefully will allow me to pass the referee's fitness test which takes place in March next year.

The next session might be tomorrow but I may leave it to Wednesday, either way my training partner (my wife who has never undertaken any form of gym exercise) will be joining me!

I felt exercised but not exhausted so I'm hoping I won't feel too bad tomorrow ...