Today I decided to have a test run for the #1millionkg charity event in December for Great Ormond Street. While I train 3-5 times a week and sometimes more than once a day, nothing can prepare you for attempting to lift 1000 tons in 24 as part of a very small team. That is 1 million kg - yes, lots and lots of weight! Think of it as what the average gym user would lift in a year if they go 3 times a week and move about 5 tons each session - heavy enough for most people!
The idea chopped and changed and eventually settled at how long will it take to do 10% - 100 tons, or 100,000kg. I set myself 3 hours to complete this based on a previous attempt of around 38 tons in 1 hour. However, I was completely fresh and feeling well up for it. It was a good pace all the way through - enough to keep my heart rate between 140 - 160 all the way. Now consider that resting is about 45 this is very high for me!
At the end of the first hour and after avoiding multiple zombie attacks (possible hallucinations!) I realised I was well over 50 tons. This has a drastic effect on the rest of the workout as I realised that over half of it was already done and at least 1 hour was coming off of the overall workout time. Knowing you will finish early has a dramatic effect on many things. So much so that I actually went even faster and doubled up on a lot of the sets, doing 20 reps instead of 10. 100 tons clocked in at around 1 hour and 35 minutes which I was very pleased with. Mainly as I had a benchmark to work with for the real challenge in around 7 weeks, second because all of the weightlifting I have done has not completely destroyed my work capacity being a different energy system to my 2 previous sports, and thirdly as I knew there was a real chance of me doing half of the event on my own at the right pace. I think the full 1 million kg by one person in 24 hours may just be a little out of reach at present and risk an early death! Not worth it.....
So it was a test, I rose to it, and did it in half the time - very happy and realising that the years of training really do pay off and maintain foundations in whatever you have done in the past.
Here is what it looks like to lift 100 tons in just over 90 minutes -
Not sure where it goes from here :)
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