The Running

'Couch 2 5k' - the program works. I downloaded some really crappy playlists that told me when to run and when to walk. The music drove me to insanity. I spent some time making my own playlists. Funny how my running improved when I wasn't annoyed by the 'boom boom boom' of the hip-hop and the rave music pulsing through my head. I will have to touch on music more in-depth at some point.

I mapped out my route, to my delight my road is 2.5 km long. So out my driveway, north on my road to the the highway, turn around and run south past my house and down to the lake, turn around and back home. 5 km. Easy right?!?!! No major hills except the ones in my mind, that is where it becomes difficult.

The first week going from walking for 5 minutes to running for 1 minute was liberating. I was running!!! IN PUBLIC at that.....well, if you saw my road you would realize that public is subjective. I sailed through the first 3 weeks of the program. My confidence was high!!!

Week 4 hit me hard. My body turned into a brick shit house and was totally uncooperative. My legs felt like lead. Mind games mostly. I repeated Week 4. Running for more than 2 minutes was harder than I thought. After doing Week 4 over I procrastinated about jumping into Week 5. Looking at the program I realized I would be running for a solid 20 minutes by the last run. OMG, how was I going to do this?!!?!

I ended up exceeding that. I ran for 37 minutes straight.....nearly the entire 5km!!!! My head wouldn't let me stop and apparently my body could handle it. I did revert back to doing Week 5 the way it was meant to and really ended up repeating that week like I did for Week 4, making the program 12 weeks. I think 12 will be my lucky number.

I have now finished the program and my running strategy is with intervals with 10 minutes of running, 1 minute of walking, lather rinse repeat until I have completed the full 5 kilometers. My time has been in and around the 45 minute mark. I'm slow, but I don't care.

Yesterday was Day#2 of training for my first 'race'. I beat my previous time and clocked in at 44:30:01 - did you know that iPods have stopwatches?!?!? No more guessing at my time! I've had the thing for years and never knew it had that function!

My first race is a 6km Pumpkin Run on November 1st that my gym is hosting. Commitment - here we go.