It was all going so well.
My final high intensity session last Thursday went exactly as I’d hoped.
Four intervals.
Five minutes each.
All at 14 km/h.
A couple of Zone 2 sessions and a lighter strength session over the weekend.
Then rest on Monday and Tuesday before my VO₂ max test on Wednesday morning.
Everything was going to plan.
Until Tuesday.
I woke up and checked my Oura data as usual.
Minor signs of strain.
My HRV had dropped a little.
More concerningly, my respiratory rate had increased.
Was I coming down with something?
A couple of hours later I could feel a slight restriction in my breathing.
Not exactly ideal preparation for a test designed to push my heart and lungs to their limit.
I kept in touch with Jordan throughout the day.
The decision was simple.
If my breathing still felt restricted on Wednesday morning, we’d postpone.
Again.
To say it got into my head would be an understatement.
I’d already postponed twice this year because of injury.
I’d put together four incredibly consistent months of training.
I was ready for this.
I really didn’t want to pull out again.
Wednesday morning arrived.
I checked Oura.
The warning signs had disappeared.
I gave myself another 45 minutes to get up, move around and see how I felt.
All good.
I messaged Jordan.
We were on.
I arrived at EAC just after 8am and started warming up.
Jordan fitted the breathing mask and the test began.
Ten minutes walking at 5 km/h.
One minute at 7.
Then every minute, the treadmill got 1 km/h faster.
My job was simple.
Stay on for as long as possible.
In previous tests Jordan had told me what was happening with my heart rate and VO₂ as the test progressed.
Not this time.
We’d agreed beforehand that I didn’t want to know any numbers.
I didn’t want them in my head.
I asked him for one thing.
Keep me on that treadmill for as long as possible.
10 km/h.
Then 14.
This was where the test really started for me.
Fourteen still felt comfortable. I’d done a lot of training there.
At 15, I started to feel the pressure.
At 16, it was game on.
Jordan wasn’t giving me numbers, but a couple of times I heard him say:
“Still rising, Pete.”
That was all I needed to hear.
My VO₂ was still climbing.
Then 17 km/h.
“Give me one more minute, Pete.”
I kept going.
18 km/h.
I’d never run that fast on a treadmill in my life.
“Another 30 seconds.”
By now I was struggling.
My form was deteriorating.
Every stride felt like it was throwing me forward.
I was starting to lose balance.
As I approached 30 seconds, I heard Jordan again.
“Another ten seconds.”
No chance.
I was done.
I stepped onto the side rails.
Jordan immediately dropped the treadmill back to walking pace and told me to get back on until my heart rate came down.
It was the last thing on earth I wanted to do.
By now Jules had arrived and was walking on the treadmill beside me.
She took one look at the state of me and laughed.
“You’re not encouraging me to try one of these any time soon.”
Eventually the mask came off.
I was mostly interested in enjoying my first unrestricted breaths when Jordan started talking.
I didn’t hear everything he said.
But I heard one number.
56.5.
The reaction was immediate.
I punched the air.
Possibly more than once.
56.5 ml/kg/min.
Four years earlier, I had walked into one of Jordan’s sessions and been shattered by something that today would barely constitute my warm-up.
I remember that day particularly well because Paddy Johns was there.
Paddy and I had been at school together. He went on to play rugby 59 times for Ireland and, that day, he completely blew me out of the water.
Something shifted in me.
I started to wonder what might be possible if I really committed to this.
A few months later I hired Jordan.
When I did my first VO₂ max test in September 2024, I scored 50.4.
Jordan told me that put me around the top 5% for my age group.
Then he gave me another target.
53 would put me around the top 5% for men in their thirties.
Going into Wednesday’s test, I would have taken anything in the 50s as progress.
I thought 53 or maybe 54 was probably the absolute top end of what I could achieve.
56.5 changed that picture.
Based on the reference data we use, that puts me around the top 5% for men in their twenties and top 1% for men in their 50s.
And here’s the interesting part.
Last week I wrote an entire newsletter called It’s Just A Number .
I still believe that.
56.5 doesn’t make me any better than I was on Tuesday.
It doesn’t make me more worthy.
It doesn’t tell me who I am.
It’s just a number.
But a number can also be information.
Evidence.
And I get to decide what I do with it.
For me, 56.5 is evidence of what can happen when I stay on the path.
Four years of training.
Consistency.
Setbacks.
Injuries.
Rehab.
Changing the system when it wasn’t producing the result I wanted.
Turning up again.
And again.
And again.
The number hasn’t changed who I am.
But it has changed something.
It’s changed what I can see.
Possibilities that looked unrealistic a few days ago suddenly don’t look quite so unrealistic.
Jordan and I are already talking about what’s next.
Improving my running at higher speeds.
Learning to hold my form at 18, 19 and maybe 20 km/h.
Seeing how this fitness translates into HYROX.
Maybe one event.
Maybe two.
And increasingly I’m thinking beyond that.
As I approach the end of my fifties and move into my sixties, I’d love to become a genuinely competitive age group athlete in whatever events I feel drawn towards.
I don’t know what the limits of that are.
And I’m becoming less interested in deciding them in advance.
Maybe that’s what excites me most about 56.5.
Not the number itself.
What it has opened up.
Because sometimes staying on the path long enough doesn’t just change what we’re capable of.
It changes what we’re willing to believe might be possible next.
Much love
Peter