Global Sport Stories

Over the course of my forever growing interest surrounding endurance and fitness training, an aspect which has presented itself consistently is the simple idea of just getting miles in your legs. For example, if you are endeavouring to run a marathon, can you run the marathon distance over the course of the week? As needless to say, if you can’t manage this, you don’t really have a hope in hell of completing the distance in one go. 

It seems to be a really simple principle, and is one I am clinging on to in an attempt to justify myself not being as conventionally active. Hence, as the name of this week’s blog suggests, I have begun some different, slightly unorthodox ‘training’.

Monday saw a return to my return at 5 a side. I was fearing the worst as, despite having been on a run since returning from Switzerland, I had done zero short, high intensity work. I’m not sure whether it was due to sheer under appreciation of my dangerously good underlying fitness levels or a slightly weaker opposition we faced at Power League (definitely the latter), but I didn’t feel as though I gassed out too quickly. Such is the format of five a side that I feel as though if you don’t come off the pitch dripping in sweat you haven’t put your all in, however, as our team begins to gel more and more we have started to run around less like headless chickens – meaning our fitness takes us further.

We ran out 9-2 winners for our third win of the season, cementing a solid fifth spot out of six in Division C! I think simply not finishing bottom of the league and winning a few games along the way marked success for us this season, so lets say we’ve achieved this with, still one game remaining.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday is where the real fun begins, but first you may need a little background information. To ensure this page remains fresh, full of content and, more importantly, due to desires to maximise our summer to full potential, my girlfriend and I are looking to buy a van to take us around Europe. Of course, these aren’t cheap. So from here on out the aim of the game is maximising our earnings. There is a point to this, just please bare with me. The jobs I have found myself in are in education and hospitality, so for Tuesday and Wednesday I was working in school in the morning before a quick turn around to work in the bar in the evening. 

This clearly means exercising has taken less of a priority, which I am obviously aware of and not particularly happy about. But alas, the one benefit I am trying to take from this period of graft is the time spent on my feet; especially when one of your roles at the school is to follow a student escape artist around all day. This meant, combining both jobs, that over Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was averaging well over 17,000 steps per day.

Upon a quick google, on average the number of steps it takes to complete a marathon is 52,000. And guess what my total steps were over those three days…53,005. 

So there you go, even by not training directly, I’ve proved I’ve got the marathon distance in me, albeit over three days and at a walking pace. That’s a start right?

A four and a half kilometre run on my day off on Friday was a nice opportunity to get some more orthodox exercise in. This, partnered with my planned swim before work today (Sunday), made me feel as though I still had a semi-active week, along with football on the Monday. 

The work exercise balance is one that I feel I consistently go on about throughout these blogs, and I’m sure I will continue to do so. Hopefully however, over time I will find what works best for me. And all jokes aside, at least doing these long hours proves I can be on my feet for a prolonged period of time. Soon enough though, it’s about changing that from chasing school children round the playgrounds of the Northeast,  to running up Europe’s toughest mountains.