Berlin Marathon: 1st PT Session

I've taken the financial plunge and hired a personal trainer. One session a week between now and the marathon at £45 a pop - that's on top of the £75 a month it costs to not go to the Virgin Active very much every month. Try not to think about it.

Yasmine is an endurance running specialist. She's run a marathon in Germany and done plenty of halves. It turns out she finished a few minutes behind me in the Hackney half last month. I'm looking forward to seeing what difference she makes. 

The first session began with a warm-up on a ski-ing machine I hadn't used before followed by a reintroduction to some of those horrible exercises I stopped doing years ago because they were so annoying: squats, lunges, walking lunges. There were also a few new ones - the sumo squat with a 12kg kettlebell, tyre flips, medicine ball throwing and plyo box jumps. 

It was a tough workout. I worked up a sweat and really felt the leg muscles straining. I was glad to shuffle off into the steam room and jacuzzi after a challenging hour. 

I lunched on poached eggs and beans on toast then rehydrated for the rest of the day with my visiting brother: a couple of Oliver's Islands under the swifts at The Blue Boat on the river at Hammersmith, a couple of DNAs a bit further west on the hot and steamy patio of The Old Ship and a pale ale for the road in the sun-drenched Eagle beer garden in Askew Road.  

All Fridays should be like this.