Losing weight, getting healthy and fit are great in and of themselves. I feel great, I feel healthy, but I wasn’t sure how to find out how well my fitness has improved. If I took some sort of fitness test, I would be a baseline of where I am at now and wouldn’t give me any sort of indication of improvement. As I was in the process of figuring out a way to understand my improvements, an event was scheduled and took care of my concerns.
Over the last three years, I have participated in the Fight For Air Climb in Denver, CO. This is a fundraising event for the Colorado Chapter of the American Lung Association. The event, which raises money for education and policy, is held in the tallest building in Denver. Participants climb all 56 floors of the building! This event is a perfect test of my fitness and comparing times over the last three years is, at the very least, an indication of my fitness improvement. My finish times (and what I weighed) are listed below:
2009 = 19:26 (250 pounds)
2010 = 20:57 (254 pounds)
2011 = 13:12 (205 pounds)
As you can see, I was able to improve my finish time by 6-7 minutes over the two previous years. I am also about 50 pounds less than I was over the last two years. I gotta believe that there is a direct correlation between the weight that I’ve lost and my finish time. I didn’t just lose that weight by diet alone. I’ve worked out religiously over the last year, which has drastically improved my fitness as well.
As I mentioned in the opening of this post, that losing weight and getting healthy are great. But if you are trying to find out how your fitness has improved, start by entering into events. On any given weekend, there are 5K’s, 10K’s, cycling events and the list goes on. After a few events, you will have enough data points to gauge where your fitness level is at.
This approach creates a game or competition with myself and keeps things interesting. It makes me feel like I am going to the gym to train for an event; when in reality I am only training for life! But the mental game with myself keeps me going!
