Fitness

In 2008 I was working on a horribly stressful project, started comfort eating and was eventually having asthma attacks. That project got binned by the end-user before we completed it, and I was lucky enough to walk into another job: albeit 500km from home.

After a month or two I realised all I was doing after work was going to the bar for a drink with friends, then home for food. It had to stop, so I joined the gym: finish work between 5.00pm and 6.00pm and go gyming until 8.00pm (usually the last one out).

When I started gyming I was about 95kg.

In early January 2009 I was down to 85kg or thereabouts so I treated myself to a mountain bike, and in July I bought a Concept 2 rower. By this time the asthma attacks had stopped.

One day whilst at the gym the owner called me over and told me that there was an MMA class starting in the adjacent hall (part of the fitness centre), so began a year and a bit of Fight Club type fun and games twice a week. Big guys, small guys, one girl, a lot of sweat and not a little pain (sprained ribs make laughter difficult) – Mrs Knott also complained about the bruises, but I think they were compensated for by new-found Spartan physique (70-75kg).

In 2010 I started doing a bit of running, which got serious in 2011: putting 1600km on a pair of trainers over about 2 years.

I do like my numbers, so I found myself starting to track my activities, for which there are a plethora of apps and websites. For anybody that cares, my online fitness presence can be found at:

SportTracks:

SportTracks also make a great desktop exercise tracker if you aren’t yet in the cloud.

Endomondo:

Also well worth becoming a paid-up member, and it has apps for smartphones.

Fitocracy:

The only widget I could find appears to be broken, so you’ll have to follow this link for the time being.

Desperately trying to level up, and feeling guilty anytime I drop out of the first 100 pages of the 30-day points tally. As of late-June 2013 I’m hovering around page 200 out of 7435 – not enough running going on.

Strava:

Haven’t logged too many activities on Strava, as most of the time I’m the only person working out in a given area, so being KoM is not particularly challenging. I’ve also been struggling with processing runs/rides: “operation failed” seems to be common when naming routes and so on.

Not that we have many mountains, barely any elevation change on most workouts!