What walking 2-3 miles a day does to your fitness after a while
The free time to go running that I envisioned never really materialized due to visiting, Christmas shopping and a whole lot of other excuses, but after weeks of wondering about the impact of daily walking on cardiovascular fitness, today I decided to find out by exactly how much I had decelerated. I went along the hilly route and usually along the way I get treated to sights like this
but with fog today it was more like this:
Heading straight for hills might have been a little masochistic in hindsight, but I never planned it that way. I thought it would be easier than running fast on the flats, and to a certain extent, it was. I ran the first 13.5 minutes relaxed, reaching the first marker right on cue for 8 mins/mile pace, which surprised me a bit. The PB time to that spot is 12:10 - I expected worse than 13:30. But if anything, I knew it would be the later part where the lack of fitness really showed.
I made it along the 0.75-mile winding road to the top of the palace under 18 minutes overall, maintaining the same margin off PB pace. From then it was downhill until the midway point and I had one of life's most important decisions to make - sprint the half-mile downhill and try to get as close as possible to a halfway PB (20:10), or go at a manageable pace to save energy for the way up? (On the PB day it took 5 minutes for the fitter pig to run that particular half-mile uphill.) Did I have the courage to sprint downhill in what would have been two minutes without tanking on the way up? Or would I be better in taking the safer route and conserving all the energy for the way back?
Cluck cluck cluck.
Alternating walking and running I managed to get to the top again without difficulty and then kept moving the rest of the way without pushing the pace too much (not that I could anyway). Long story short, hilly 5 miles in 42:50. It's off 8 mins/mile overall, but I think on the flats I could go faster than that. I suppose I should try that after a few weeks of walking again.
In addition to walking 2-3 miles I've been doing the following supersets:
1) 30 pressups, 20 crunches, whatever pressups I can manage, 20 reverse crunches
2) 30 bicep curls, calf raises, then lateral raises for legs
I do about one or two sets a day - nothing major, just squeezing a set in every now and again while waiting for the kettle to boil, the toaster to spit out the toast, etc.
Overall I'm not disappointed about running the pace I am at on just the few miles of walking each day. In fact, I'm quite surprised - I thought I would be on 9 min/miles by now. So I'll probably not have as much guilt as before when I don't go running. Or maybe it's the Christmas shopping that's done wonders for my cardiovascular system. Going to the shops is a triathlon in itself, but that's a post for another day.
Happy Xmas, everyone!
