Week 1 Day 3(b)

[ewt]

I'm late with things this week; I'd hoped to be running on Mondays or Tuesdays, generally. Monday I wasn't feeling well, Tuesday I was stuck inside waiting for a parcel, yesterday was far too busy.

I was tired today, and I noticed that while the 60-second running intervals were still relatively easy in cardiovascular terms, I felt more out of breath than usual and took a bit longer for my breathing to return to normal in between.

As with last week, I extended the walking intervals (by pausing the app on my phone) so that I did not start any running interval with shin pain beyond a certain level. On an entirely subjective scale I think the shin pain was less than it has been since the first run, so I'm very pleased with this strategy. I started stretching between running intervals much earlier in this session, before my shins actually started to hurt (but when I could feel the muscles I stretch were starting to seize up a bit), and that seems to have helped.

I need to decide whether to keep doing Week 1 Day 3 until I can do it "as directed" with only 90 second walking/stretching intervals, or move on to Week 2 and keep pausing the walking intervals as needed. None of the running intervals today felt as if I couldn't have continued for another thirty seconds, either because of CV limits or shin pain limits, so I am leaning toward starting Week 2, but perhaps it is best to see how I feel in the next few days (last week I had sore shins walking for a couple of days after my run despite the new strategy, and I could do without having that as a regular feature of my life).

Week 5 day 2

[liv]

It was just about warm enough to run outside again today, so I went out to the park at lunchtime. I ran as slowly as I could and that was slow enough to manage the full 8 minute run twice. My average pace for the whole session was over 10 min/km again, but it still feels like an achievement to have managed those longer runs. Also in the first 8 minutes I ran from the entrance to the park all the way to Morrisons at one end of the park, and in the second 8 minutes from just beyond the entrance to the end of the rugby pitch at the other end. Which felt like satisfying "stages"; it would be reasonable to try to work up to covering those distances in 6 minutes or perhaps even 5.

Runkeeper recorded over 2 miles for the first time, but that's mainly because I ended up half a mile from my start point and reckoned I might as well get credit for the walk back. Realistically this was 2.8 km in 28'17''.

And now I have to psych myself up to the scary 20 minute continuous run for day 3!