It did start to feel like it would never end. I’d begun to regard a heart rate above 50 as normal. I can’t recall when I’ve sustained such a measurement for such a long period. I was rewarded for not training yesterday: my resting heart rate this morning fell back to 47 beats per minute, indicating the passing of the virus. I suspect it could still go a little lower, as I didn’t have enough sleep.

Over three weeks of no exercise, my weight only drifted up a couple of pounds. Even so, I was eating a lot. Over the past few days, it seems to be moving in the other direction. From 73 kg (161 lbs) last week, my rather imprecise scales are now leaning the other side of 72 kg (159 lbs.) Following on from the BBC’s Truth about Food programme and its revelation that the calcium in dairy products like yoghurt drain fat from food, I’ve started eating quantities after some meals. I’ve also gone back to porridge and honey for breakfast – classic marathoner’s food and a staple of Paula Radcliffe. It certainly has left me full in the morning, even in the recent cold weather, so no need for a couple of pieces of buttered toast and marmalade. The Christmas cake is now but a small, drying triangle, and so much easier to overlook at coffee time.

I’m nervous about losing weight, and the Bath University Human Performance Centre staff warned me not to pay too much attention to it on a daily basis – I guess they’re only too familiar with the danger of obsessiveness in this area. I’m not particularly heavy. But my VO2 Max, or capacity to pump oxygen around the body, will certainly improve for marathon purposes if I dropped some weight. Combining that with higher intensity training looks risky. Two pounds in a week is probably a little too much to lose, and may be a case of more noise than signal, likely to even out on a week-to-week basis. But I’m happy eating lots of fruit, smoothies, pulses and organic meat.

Resting heart rate 47

Weight 72 kg

Mood

Total exercise energy consumed 568 kcal (5k jog, 10 mins bike)

It isn’t always clear what connection we have with the elite athletes in our culture, except as lofty examples and sources of entertainment.

If you live in Bath, and I assume this must be true of some other cities with significantly funded sports facilities, your child can get access to the best coaching money can buy. I learned the other day that the swimmer who coaches my seven-year-old’s beginner’s class at the Sports Training Village came ninth in the 2004 Athens Olympic final. £4 per lesson, and no waiting list. How is that possible?

First Ron Hill shows me up for my malingering, now England Rugby star Jonny Wilkinson kicks me into touch.

His remarkable return to the England team after four years on Saturday against Scotland was considered a questionable decision on the part of coach Brian Ashton. Incidently, Ashton is ex-Bath rugby coach, and the England squad practised at the university facilities last week.

Wilkinson’s performance, among others, clearly lifted England, who have suffered a string of defeats leading to the departure of Ashton’s predecessor.

The risk in playing Wilkinson, if there was one, paid off. The England team seems rejuvenated, and pundits have been bewildered by the stunning form Wilkinson has shown after such a long break.

Two things are striking from a recovery point of view. On radio today, his fitness advisor Steve Black at club Newcastle Falcons remarked that with each reinjury and setback, he recovered (motivation) more quickly.

In the Times today, Wilkinson also explained the role of practice in improving his game even when he was not able to train fully, or compete:-

“I may have made my comeback in an England shirt on Saturday but, as far as I was concerned, I hadn’t really been away. Every day that I’d been out of the game, I’d been training for the day when I was back in it. So I was absent, but not in some rugby wilderness. With every injury, I had a plan: different parts of my game or my physique that I could work on.

So I don’t see myself as particularly different to Jason Robinson. He’d been away and come back, too. I’ve spent my time working for and preparing for that day, so I could come in and thrive from the off.

So, yes, it was sort of a dream comeback. But it was also one that I’d thought about, prepared for. I am delighted it went quite well, but I can’t say that it was a surprise — as in a shock — because I’d just spent three years practising for it.”

In comparison over the past three weeks with a virus, I even gave up strengthening and stretching exercises, which I guess, in some light form, would not have hurt me.

As an aside, Friday’s run was premature. I mistakenly ran up a hill, albeit slowly, when I should have chosen a very flat course, or not exercised at all. Saturday and Sunday I felt weak again, so did not train.

Resting heart rate 51

Weight 72 kg

Mood

Exercise none, but reintroduced Nike Free barefoot simulating training shoes while walking to smooth possible return to training

What if you could turn the clock back and find that you had what it takes to be an Olympic athlete? Peter Keen, the UK’s head of high performance at UK Sport, the funding body, recently said that armchair athletes in their twenties today are not too late to consider participating in the London Olympics in 2012, assuming they have the latent ability, and are prepared to put in the work. However, they would have to choose an endurance event like marathon or cycling.

The Maximal Test I took last Friday is recommended by Bath University Human Peformance Centre before any potential athlete embarks on an extensive and demanding training programme. It presupposes the individual will use a heart rate monitor. (You can acquire a basic model for around £50). The test will tell you all sorts of vital statistics about your current strength, and highlight any deficiencies. Above all, it could reveal a hidden talent concealed within your genetic make-up.

When I first took one a couple of years ago, I nearly fell out of my chair. Although not quite good enough for elite competition, my endurance ability, as measured by my so-called VO2 Max was 61. When I repeated the test last Friday, it had edged up marginally. Professional marathoners tend to produce a number from 70 upwards. With training and some loss of weight my VO2 Max might still go up. It may well have been higher when I was younger.

If you are in your twenties now, lurking within you might be a professional athlete waiting to get out. There are plenty of good examples too of athletes who found themselves later in life. See later posts for some notable winners.

What does a Maximal Test do?

The sports laboratory, while measuring your heart rate at different running paces, also analyses how effectively your body converts oxygen by capturing your exhaled breath and running it through a computer to ascertain that VO2 Max number. With a few regular pin-pricks in your fingers, the scientists will also tell you how much lactic acid you produce at different speeds. This helps determine how you need to train to improve. When our muscles ache, that’s lactic acid doing its worst. The more we work, the more we produce. Ironically, my test showed I need to run at slower speeds and longer distances to improve my running economy. I was a bit better at higher speeds, possibly because I run too fast in training.

They also test your iron levels. Mine were fine for this type of activity.

Resting Heart Rate 51

Weight 72 kg

Mood

No exercise

Sleep disturbed, felt viral during night. Long day working in the City. Chose not to run despite programme.

How in touch are you with what your heart is telling you? In exercise, probably the best information you can get is from your heart. Heart rate reveals exertion, stress, infection, rate of recovery.

Every morning when you awake, it is possible to find out a lot about how the day might be, and how to organize it, if you were just to measure your resting heart rate. That can include work, exercise and leisure. If your resting heart rate is raised above its normal, that can be a warning signal. You might be suffering from stress, or still recovering from hard exercise in the previous couple of days.

It can also be a warning sign before other symptoms that you have caught a virus. Skip a meal, work too hard that day, exercise too vigorously, or go out in the evening when you should stay home, and what might have just been a sniffle could lay you up for a few days, or lead to a more debilitating injury.

When it comes to a training schedule for a marathon or half-marathon, you will find that the best will often refer to different exercise bands or zones as a percentage of your maximum heart rate.

Finding out your maximum heart rate can be approximated for free, but is best done by visiting a sports performance clinic, like the one at Bath University. For a little less than £100, you’ll get the same kind of information about your physiology that world-class athletes require, and you’ll be using the same facilities used by greats like Olympic hurdler Colin Jackson. If it sounds like a lot of money, realise that it may save you a lot in the long-run. It might just reveal some hidden talent, a possibility I’ll deal with in the next post.

The so-called long run started in earnest today. This is to build up my stamina and endurance, in other words get me used to spending a lot of time on my legs to last the three to four hours I expect my participation in the Flora London Marathon to last.

From here on I’ll be posting my vital resting and exercising statistics at the foot of each blog entry. I hope they’ll prove a useful training aid.

Resting Heart Rate 48

Weight 72 kg

Mood

Total exercise energy burned 1037 kcal, 10 mins bike, 1:08 hours run

Discomfort in left foot after 20-30 minutes, apparently associated with earlier tendon injury