Bother.

[ewt]

I've been very tired this week, and struggling with motivation, and I was going to run today but turned my ankle. It isn't bad -- I'm walking nearly normally and there isn't any swelling -- but it is painful enough a few hours later that I think running tonight would be a bad idea.

Tomorrow no good, Sunday I won't have running kit with me having stayed overnight in Leytonstone, which means it'll be Monday or Tuesday.

(Also, I tried to post this before and it went in my own journal, for reasons I don't quite understand.)

Week 5 success

[liv]

I did it! I ran for 20 minutes without a break! I am so pleased with this, I really didn't know if I was ever going to be able to do it. Average pace 9'13'' /km, including the warm-up, though I think I wasn't going a lot faster during the run than with the fast walking warm-up. 2.7 km total, which is on the low side of what I typically cover, but doing it all in one go is a different story altogether!

Conditions were not really great for running, but I decided to risk an outdoor run again. I tried lnr's advice of running with a scarf over my mouth to warm the air hitting my lungs, but it didn't really seem to make much difference and it felt weird to run with my mouth covered. So I just did it anyway; again, it was sunny and I stayed in direct sunshine most of the time, so I don't think it was actually under 8 °C.

The ground was pretty sodden, so I decided to run on the path. It is definitely easier to run on paths than on the grass, which I think did help with completion. But I'm still scared of impact on hard surfaces and don't want to make it a habit. There was one footfall of the whole run where I landed awkwardly, and my knee can still feel it. It's not painful, I don't think I've done serious damage, but I don't want to keep doing that and potentially build up cumulative minor stuff.

It's hard to describe how it felt to run so much further than I ever have before. I definitely see what people mean when they say the jump from intervals to 20 minutes continuous is mainly psychological. It wasn't really any easier than last week, when I gave up after 12 minutes, or two days ago when I felt as if 8 minute intervals were the limit of what I could do. I was just more determined to finish, somehow. And the second half felt easier than the first, partly because I fell into something like a rhythm (to my astonishment), and partly just the knowledge that I was already more than half way. My legs were getting tired by the end, whereas in the past I've always been so focused on how hard it is to get enough air that I wasn't conscious of muscular fatigue at all.

But seriously, this C25K program really does work; less than a couple of months ago I had to force myself to run for a whole minute at a time, and now I'm doing 20! I am starting to believe I might actually complete this.

Stalled but determined to hang in there

[rmc28]

I've just updated my own blog with the tale of woe, but I want to say thank you to my fellow members for keeping this community updated.  Even though I feel stalled on returning to run, the fact that you are both updating regularly is keeping me from giving up entirely, and determined to resume when I have stopped (literally) tripping over obstacles.

THANK YOU