Week 7, day 2

[rmc28]

Another 25 minute continuous run.  I completed it, and I mostly hated it, and I got through it by promising myself I would move on to the training programme that lets me take walking breaks.   So I'm stopping c25k here, and moving over to week 3 of "Run/Walk Beginner Half", a training plan available in RunKeeper if you have Elite (which I have paid for already).    Run 3 of that week is 3.2 km which is around what I've been managing in the last few 25-minute runs.

I plan to post my half-marathon training here as I did before (Nov '13 to Mar '14), so long as it isn't demotivating for anyone.  Please do let me know, either by commenting or in a message, if you'd prefer I didn't.

I am feeling weirdly defensive about "giving up" c25k.  My original plan was to finish it, and prove I could run continuously for 30 minutes, and then let myself use walking breaks for longer runs, building back up to a half-marathon.  I have proved that I can run continuously for 25 minutes but that at best I dislike it.   I just don't think I can keep up running 3x a week if I mostly dislike the actual running.

Baseline notes: at this point the furthest I have run since restarting c25k is 3.3km.  The fastest I have run is 7:43 min/km.

Comments

[liv]

It's really interesting that you hate continuous running but enjoy interval running; that's a useful thing know when you're planning your programmes in future. My experience of C25K is that if you can do 25 minutes you can probably do 30 though perhaps a bit slower, so I think you have basically proved whatever you need to about continuous running. And more importantly, you've built your fitness back up to the point where you can reasonably manage the runs from the beginning of half marathon training.

Good luck with the new programme! I do hope the community don't object, I'm looking forward to reading about how it goes.

[rmc28]

I don't always hate continuous running but I definitely find it mentally tougher. I think Friday was just a 'bad workout day' but I hadn't much enjoyed the previous two runs of 25 min either, and I'd already been considering switching into Beginner Half in a couple of weeks.

I am amused to remember that I was highly dubious of taking walking breaks when I first found the Galloway website and free training schedules.