On Your Marks: Some good news, and some bad news

I'll start this week's column with some good news.
From left to right - Me, Owen Callaghan, Penny Sanders, Martin Owens, David Buckley and Rob PhelpsFrom left to right - Me, Owen Callaghan, Penny Sanders, Martin Owens, David Buckley and Rob Phelps
From left to right - Me, Owen Callaghan, Penny Sanders, Martin Owens, David Buckley and Rob Phelps

At last week’s weigh-in, I was at first shocked, and not in a good way, about my progress. After a tough couple of upper body and mobility sessions, I was feeling good.

But when I first stood on the scales, I had put on weight since I first started my sessions with Owen Calllaghan, fitness manager at K2 Crawley, on February 5.

It was a minimal rise but one I was not expecting.

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But my frown was quickly turned upside down when we really got into the figures of body fat, muscle mass, total body water etc.

At the start of February, I was 30.9% body fat. This has been reduced to 28.2%.

My muscle mass has increased from 65.7% to 68.3% and total body water has risen from 48.6% to 51.9%.

And one of the key factors is my visceral fat - which is a form of gel-like fat that’s actually wrapped around major organs, including the liver, pancreas and kidneys.

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In February my visceral fat was 14 and that has now reduced to 13 - apparently any higher than 13 is a worry according to Owen.

This was good news and Owen was clearly impressed with my progress and he was also glad it’s been gradual, rather than losing a lot of weight quickly.

What this shows is that what I am doing is working.

I am up to five sessions of training a week now, two runs, two gym sessions and a spin class.

It is difficult fitting it all in but I am making it work and it’s such a boost to see actual progress in the figures.

Now for the bad news....

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I am injured again! This time it was not the calf, but the hamstring in my right leg.

This happened on Thursday night when we held our first free run night on the K2 Crawley running track.

We were joined by four readers of this paper - Penny Sanders, Martin Owens, Rob Phelps and David Buckley.

After a brief introduction from Owen Callaghan, fitness manager at K2 Crawley, the runners were put through the Cooper Test (you may remember I wrote about this in an earlier column).

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The group had to see how many laps they could do in 12 minutes.

They were then asked to run two laps as fast as they could.

Unfortunately I had to bow out of the second run because I had done something to the hamstring in the first test, where I managed five and half laps in the 12 minutes.

Other than these two tests, Owen answered questions and gave advice on routines, technique, diets etc. It appeared the group all got something out of the night.

The next one is on Thursday April 5, so if you are interested in joining us, please drop me an email on [email protected]

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Regarding the injury, I have rested the leg for a few days but have continued some upper body work and Owen is going to talk to an osteopath for me. Hopefully I can sort this body out!