Couch to 5k

That was not a good run...

My trainers, which seemed to mostly fit all right on Thursday, felt too small today when I put them on. I didn't get as far with the warm-up walk as I did on Thursday, and didn't really feel warmed-up when it was time to start running. Some of the running/jogging intervals were slow enough I may as well have been walking. My shins hurt the entire time (rather than hurting a bit at first and then feeling better), and still do, and I don't feel physically good the way I did after Thursday's run. The whole thing just felt hard and unpleasant and painful, and I only finished because I wanted to see whether I could and what it would do to my body if I did.

Good things:
-dodgy hip still seems fine
-initial cardiovascular effort seemed to settle in nicely after a bit; I was not being limited by lung capacity at all, today, just by stupid leg pain.

Thoughts:
-I probably do need new trainers, a size up, to accommodate the change in foot size when I wear my 'best' shoes for three days. Bother.
-The first part of my route is uphill. It might be better, next time, to pause SimpleC25K until I am on a flat bit, especially if I'm not feeling properly warmed up; alternately, I should try a flatter route.
-I have no idea whether I'll be able to run on Thursday. I'm tempted to try it in my current 'best' shoes mentioned above, which are sort of hiking boot/trainer hybrid things.
-I'm not sure whether I should go to Week 1 Day 2(a) or stick with Week 1 Day 1 for a third repetition to see how I settle into things.

After the last run, I was fine on Friday (but it was a day off, so I didn't really challenge myself movement wise at all), had rather stiff muscles on Saturday which meant I needed to move very carefully to avoid joints getting pulled out of, er, joint, and was fine on Sunday. Judging by that, I can expect this Wednesday to be a day when I need to be quite careful with my body, but I *might* be OK on Thursday. Friday would be a bad day for me to run because I'm starting a 30-hour fundraising event at church which is going to be quite demanding enough.

I am hoping this is due to wrong shoes. It may be that I need even longer recovery time between runs and will have to drop down to once a week, but I'll try twice a week for a few more weeks to see what happens.

I've just posted about this on my own journal, so won't go into a lot of detail here.

I have some medical challenges and old injuries, and have been told running is not for me, but I'm not certain that's the case. I suspect, rather, that running lots all at once is not a good idea for me, and running marathons is not a good idea for me, and that I will have to take care to avoid injury. But I miss running from fitter days. So I'm experimenting with following a modified Couch-to-5k programme; I need to run twice a week, not three times, and I'm planning on running each session twice rather than once. So I did Week 1 Day 1 this morning, and I'll do it again early next week, and then on Thursday or Friday next week I'll do Week 1 Day 2... if it turns out that I'm wrong, and that running is genuinely bad for me, I will have to stop and think about doing something else instead, but so far I am hopeful.

I thought this morning went well. It was a stunning day with bright sunshine, which always helps, but I went out expecting that I'd probably have to stop after halfway through, and I managed the whole thing, and felt physically really good afterward. If my dodgy hip doesn't complain unduly between now and then, I'll do Week 1 Day 1(b) on Monday morning.

I'm using an Android app called "Simple C25k" which seems to meet my needs. But carrying phone and keys means I will need to find some sort of pocket belt thing with zips. I also seem to have a blister on the instep of my right foot where the orthotic I wear was rubbing in shoes I wore for the past few days; I'll wear different ones for the next few and see if I manage all right on Monday (I got these trainers before I had the orthotics, though I've not worn them much).