For those of you that read my last post on the phenomenon that is tabata, I tried it out yesterday and (just about) live to tell the tale.

A few pointers for anyone thinking of trying it:

1/Bear in mind that the 20 seconds of intense exercise seems to, weirdly, take a very long time. Your 10 seconds rest, by comparison, whizzes by in the blink of an eye.

2/Bring a proper stop watch. I don’t have one so took my kitchen timer which works fine to calculate the cooking time of a Victoria Sponge and /or the first 20 seconds of a tabata but can’t then do an instant 10 second interval without you fiddling with it and loosing track of time before re-programming it. I settled for one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi to count my 10 seconds break which I’m not sure is a fail safe timekeeping method I’d recommend.

3/Choose your venue carefully. I did it in the Botanics (above) and rather foolishly ran up hill.  I then ran out of space and had to run downhill.  Doing this at top speed (or whatever top speed is for me, at any rate) makes you feel like you will fall over.

4/ This whole exercise is no good if you’re unfit. Like I am. You basically can’t do it to full capacity for more than about two minutes.  Well, I couldn’t.  And then it’s a waste of time and doesn’t work. You have, have, have to do it for a whole four minutes.

4/ On the upside, going for a normal jog seems like quite an easy option now.

If you’re planning to off set some Easter egg scoffing with tabata, I wish you the best of luck!