Couch to 5k

I've been travelling, and didn't quite manage to keep up with my running regime until the day I left, and didn't quite manage to get started again immediately when I returned, so it's been most of a month since I last went running. I'm not only out of shape, I have a ghost of a cold, the kind that feels too mild to notice until you start putting demands on your lungs like running for half an hour. So I wasn't expecting any great things, but I know that if I don't get started again I'll never get started. It only took two hours of arguing with myself to drag myself out of the door, and I promised myself I wasn't going to be trying for any records, I just wanted to keep going at a steady pace for half an hour.

In fact I managed that pretty well, and even completed a slightly longer distance than the last few runs before I went away. 3.5 km in 30 minutes, or 8'45'' per km. I have a new shiny phone, so I'm able to time and measure my run with Runkeeper again. Actually the new shiny phone is too physically big to fit in my snazzy runners' bumbag, but I was ok just carrying it in my pocket. Conditions were about ideal, cool and clear, and I found the exercise surprisingly more enjoyable than painful. It feels as if my legs have lost conditioning more than my lungs have; my muscles ache a bit, but pleasantly, whereas breathing-wise I was working hard but felt fine.

A woman who had the appearance and gait of a serious runner rather than someone jogging to lose weight gave me some unsolicited but friendly advice. She did that thing that fast runners do when they want to chat to slow runners, of running in circles round me and a bit of running backwards. What she said was sensible and agreed with the more reasonable sorts of training advice that I've come across, mostly that I should slow down until I can hold a conversation while running, and build up speed with short bursts of faster pace, rather than trying to run at a pace that leaves me breathless. I think the problem with this is that there's pretty much no running pace slow enough to allow me to hold conversations at a normal volume without sounding short of breath, even if I go slower than walking pace and even if I'm at the peak of my fitness. I didn't try to explain this to helpful running lady, but I think that it's just the nature of my asthmatic lungs and slightly weird heart. This may be sexist of me, but I felt encouraged by this encounter whereas I think the same thing coming from a man would have felt patronizing and annoying.

Now to get back into a regular routine. I'm approaching my hundredth run and my anniversary of starting to run, so that's something to aim for.