When I began training for a marathon in March I did a fitness test to find out what my fitness level was like at the beginning of this whole journey. I blogged the results of that first test in my post You have to start somewhere. My goal was to establish a baseline I could compare myself to as I progressed through the program, and now is the time to do that comparison.

Once again Ashley Fox, marathon training program co-ordinator, personal trainer and general physical literacy expert, conducted the test for me.

We started off with some simple measurements. Over the last seven months, I have lowered my blood pressure, resting heart rate and took three cm off of my waist, all things that are to be expected when you improve your fitness level. I lost about one pound, but having noticed considerable changes in my body over the last few months, I know that I probably gained several pounds in muscle and lost a few in fat, which ended up balancing out.

                                            March 12 (Before)           Sept. 30 (Now)

Height                                 165cm                              165cm

Weight                                 57.8kg                              57.3kg

Resting Blood Pressure    110/64 mmHg                   98/62 mmHg

Resting Heart Rate             60 bpm                             54 bpm

Waist Circumference          76cm                                73 cm

Next we completed a series of physical tests. As expected, I could do more pushups, hold a high plank for longer and balance better. More unexpectedly, my sit and reach results also improved. Having cut down on activities like yoga and replaced them with running, I sitandreachexpected to be less flexible, as is usually the case Ashley told me. However, I was able to reach further than before. Why? I am not sure.

Probably the biggest improvement I made was in the balance test. In March, when I was asked to stand on a mat and balance on one leg with my eyes closed, I could hardly do it. This time, Ashley had to stop me after balancing for a minute on each foot. As someone who has never been particularly graceful, I surprised even myself with that result.

 

                                              March 12 (Before)           Sept. 30 (Now)

Modified push ups              16                                      20

High plank                            1:26 min                            1:49 min

Sit and reach (flexibility test)  40.5 cm                            45 cm

Single leg balance (Left)       18 sec                               60 sec+

Single leg balance (Right)     14 sec                               60 sec+HighPlank

Finally, we came to the hardest part, the beep test. For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this, the concept is that you listen to a recording that beeps at increasingly faster intervals. When you hear the first beep you begin to run 20 metres. The goal is to get to the end before the next beep. When you hear the next beep you run back. And you do so as beeptestlong as you can while having to run faster and faster as time goes on. You only stop when you start missing the beeps and cannot complete the distance fast enough.

In March I reached Stage 6, which gave me a predicted VOmax of 38.6 ml/kg/min.

Today I reached Stage 8, which gave me a predicted VOmax of 44.6 ml/kg/min. Which is a huge improvement.

It is so interesting to see my progress measured like this. A lot of the improvements I have made so far have been marked solely by how I felt or how long I was able to run at any given time.

If you are starting out on your own fitness journey and are interested in completing a fitness assessment like the one I did, you can find more information on the University of Calgary website.