Couch to 5k

30 minutes continuous running

2018-09-24T19:31:48Z

Posted by: liv

I didn't manage my goal of convincingly running for 25 minutes at 8½' /km. My second and third week 7 runs were much less good than the first one, hard work and slow. I felt I improved from 7.2 to 7.3 but the numbers didn't reflect that.

Then my life exploded the way it always does in September and I missed a couple of weeks. I decided to restart by seeing if I could run 30 minutes slowly, and yes I could. Second run again felt a bit less of a struggle but within the limits of measurement was the same pace and distance. My third, so-called "graduation" run was somewhat let down by Zombies, Run! being screwy. It didn't think I had covered 1 km until well over 10 minutes into the run, though by known markers on the route I was pretty sure I had. Then when I looked at the splits it claimed I'd run the first km in under 8½ minutes, but the overall average pace it reported was considerably slower than any of the splits, which is not how averages work. My best estimate is slightly slower than 9' /km.

Today I went back to running in 5 minute intervals, and managed pretty much 9' /km exactly. Pacing was a bit off; each interval was slower than the last. But I felt like I had a good workout and challenged myself in a different way from running slowly for the whole 30 minutes.

So I don't know. I was hoping that going all the way through the C25K programme again would produce real improvements, but I'm still running at about the same pace I was before I went back to the formal incremental programme. And even that not reliably; easily a quarter of my runs are much slower than that for no very obvious reason. On the positive side, I can do something which I couldn't do at the start of the summer, namely run for 30 minutes continuously with no walking breaks. And I think, though I'm not completely sure, that my overall fitness is better, which is most of the point.

And we're past the equinox and rapidly running out of daylight, so I need a new plan if I'm going to keep this up. I think I need to join the gym at work and go back to running on treadmills.

Many thanks to everybody who comments with encouragement, and posts about your own C25K experiences. This community definitely helps.

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25 minutes

2018-08-30T19:45:54Z

Posted by: liv

In my programme, the last run of week 6 and all of week 7 involve running continuously for 25 minutes. The first time I did that I measured a pace of about 9½'/km, and when I tried again today my GPS gave me nonsense readings but estimating based on my knowledge of the path I wasn't much worse than 8½'/km. I would like to confirm that as a real time, and I have two more week 7 runs to do that. But I definitely did go further than the first time I tried the 25 minute run.

I'm inclined to skip week 8 because I'm pretty confident I can go from 25 minutes to 30 minutes without too much trouble. And it would be really nice if I can keep that to a pace under 9'/km, but we'll see. There seems to be a lot of random-ish variation from one run to the next.

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Restarting week 6

2018-08-19T12:46:47Z

Posted by: liv

I've been away for just over a week, so I made a positive decision not to try to keep up running while I was on holiday, but to restart as soon as I got back. I was worried that I would have lost a lot of fitness, but actually I was doing quite active things while on holiday. A fair amount of walking, much of it uphill (since I visited a place that's much more hilly than my hometown of Cambridge), and even some kayaking, which is totally my favourite form of exercise except for the bit where it requires you to find a boat and some water, so I never actually do it.

It seemed sensible to restart week 6 after the break, so I did that this morning, with jack, and I improved my pace from the 9'20'' /km the first time to 9' /km today. A good run, I felt like I had extra in the tank if I'd wanted to go further or faster. I think it helped that I'd had enough sleep and enough hydration and the weather was cool but not cold, and maybe I just got lucky, but it's nice to have such a positive experience after taking a break.

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Week 6.1: 9'20'' /km

2018-08-08T19:51:21Z

Posted by: liv

My phone broke so I couldn't properly measure my runs for a while. I decided the best plan was to do some 'free' running until I could get the phone fixed. I did a couple of 20 minute runs, and felt like I was improving, getting just a little further in the 20 minutes each time. And I tried running home from work one day, but that went pretty badly; I can run in my normal work shoes, but running in a skirt rather than leggings is a bit grim, and it was very hot and I was tired and the route was unfamiliar, so I only managed 10 minutes.

Today I got back to my old Zombies, Run! set-up, and tried the first workout of week 6. Week 6 is the weird one where you go back to intervals after completing the long run in week 5. The NHS programme I'm using says 5 minutes, 8 minutes, 5 minutes, but it suggests an 8 minute walking break after the middle run. That sounded pointless to me; I'm as recovered as I'm going to be after 5 minutes of walking. So I swapped it round and did 5 minutes, 8 minutes, 8 minutes, with a 5 minute break between the two long intervals.

I managed that short interval at the start decently fast, covering the first KM in 8½ minutes even though some of that was walking. Then I was a bit slower for the two long intervals, and ended up doing 3 km in 28 minutes, so an overall pace of 9'20'' per km. Part of me wants to try that again and see if I can improve the pace a little, but it's probably most sensible to go on to the second workout which is just two lots of 10 minutes.

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Week 5 done!

2018-07-31T13:52:51Z

Posted by: liv

I completed week 5. I'm really proud of that, because the ramp up from 5 minutes continuous running to 20 minutes is the steepest part of the C25K curve. It took me slightly more than a week since I couldn't get out for several days (due to life reasons more than laziness, at least).

Run 1 with 5 minute intervals, 9½'/km. Run 2 with 8 minute intervals I have absolutely no measurement for since Zombies, Run! crashed after three minutes, and I thought I'd restart it once I got to the walking interval, and it crashed again so I tried restarting my phone, which then spent a very scary amount of time failing to boot. So I did two lots of 8 minutes which I didn't measure, with a very long gap in between while I tried to coax my phone out of its sulk. Phone is ok now, and I wasn't going for speed anyway, I was just trying to see if I could complete the two long intervals on a very hot day, and I could.

And today, the weather is finally bearable, and I ran a continuous 20 minutes at 9' 22'' /km. I didn't feel bad at all by the end, so I think I could have gone either further or maybe even a bit faster. I think if I manage to complete the whole 9 weeks I will in fact be a bit faster than the roughly 9½'/km I was running at the start, in 5 minute intervals. I was hoping to be somewhat faster by the middle of the programme, but then I have covered most of it during a very long heatwave, so probably wasn't building up speed as much as I might.

Also I have run exactly 50 km since I restarted using Zombies, Run! which is pleasing.

I managed to forget to put my running shoes on when I went out and ran in my normal shoes. They're soft-soled trainer-like things, so hopefully haven't wrecked my feet and ankles too badly. But anyway I didn't even notice until the end of the run, so hopefully it didn't have many consequences.

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c25k @ 2018-07-25T10:37:00

2018-07-25T08:44:06Z

Posted by: angrboda

Based on how my gentler runs are getting at the same time gentler and gentler and more and more difficult, I would conclude that the idea of the gentler run is a good one. I've decided that once we're free of this blasted heat wave, I'm going to figure out how to delete my data from the app and just start over from scratch and build from there. Then we'll see how long I'll make it before winter. (I could do so without deleting, but it'd be harder to keep track of) Today I was seriously struggling with three minutes running. I have always been the sort of person who suffers rather in heat, and I think this fact is being illustrated quite nicely here.

On the upside, today I got sort of fist-pumped by a passing mamil, so that was encouraging. Or, in hindsight, his gesture could have been interpreted somewhat differently in which case I got slightly threatened by a passing mamil, but I don't think that's very likely.

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Zombie silliness

2018-07-19T20:00:32Z

Posted by: liv

Week 4 run 2: Zombies Run recorded completely silly times for me, which is always annoying because I like getting my 'scores'. I think I was probably slowish as it was another really hot run.

Week 4 run 3: Zombies Run gave me a sensible overall result for the whole run: 2.8 km in 24 minutes, or 8'44'' /km. I believe that as it's a bit faster than the first time I tried this workout, but not ludicrously fast. But the rubbish timing last time makes me unsure, as does the fact that the splits did not make any sense, claiming I ran 3 km in under 3 minutes by zigzagging about all over the place. Which apart from being obviously wrong is inconsistent with a final distance of under 3 km in over 20 minutes.

I don't want to give up ZR because I'm enjoying the story and finding that it helps a lot with motivation to keep going and not just clock-watch, which I need at this stage of the programme.

I also got my boyfriend cjwatson into Zombies Run. He's also acquired the same piece of kit as me: a headband with built-in Bluetooth headphones. That is way more comfortable for running than in ear headphones, and doesn't advertise the fact that you can't hear like over ear headphones. The sound quality isn't amazing but I'm pleased with it. So I mentioned to him that I have a themed playlist which contains songs about zombies and other undead / the apocalypse / running away, most of them with a fast beat except I couldn't resist Zombie by The Cranberries.

In case anyone is interested: Zombie music.

Next week: 3 X 5 minutes for the start of Week 5. I feel reasonably confident about that.

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Week 4: 9'11'' /km

2018-07-11T20:10:15Z

Posted by: liv

I tried Week 4, with the aim of just completing it and not worrying too much about pace. The weather has got a lot more pleasant, warm but not unbearably hot. I switched back to Zombies Run because my problem with longer intervals is more often boredom than needing to concentrate. And I did complete the whole workout, and it felt reasonably comfortable, and ZR recorded my pace as a little over 9' /km, which is fine because I expected to be a bit slower and anyway ZR seems to be a bit more pessimistic than Runkeeper.

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In which I'm full of excuses...

2018-07-11T14:47:16Z

Posted by: angrboda

O hai, it's been a while.

I have been running. It's just I've also had a number of skips lately. I haven't actually quite reached the point where I'm entirely comfortable with skipping a run, because the more I've skipped the easier it is and that way just leads to inactivity. And I'm not the most disciplined of people at the best of times, so I need to be really careful with skipping runs now that I've finally got started again.

So I've skipped a few, but I've never skipped when I didn't feel like it was at least in a small way justified. I've never skipped solely because I didn't want to go. I never want to go, but there have been other reasons as well.

( My excuses. May or may not be poor, but they are my excuses )

But today I went out, and again it was hot and dry and hot and although it's my day off, I seem to be incapable of running in the morning when the sun is not beating down quite so hard. I keep telling myself it's what I'll do. Have yet to manage it. On top of that, I accidentally started the next run instead of repeating the run from last time as intended. I only discovered this when I was instructed to run for 9 minutes rather than the expected 8! Challenge, however, accepted.

In all humility, I am dead chuffed that I completed it.

Also, in other news, have received that phone armband, so first run without having to move my sim card to the old phone and also first run without having a phone stuffed down the front of my bra. Not certain how I'm going to get on with it, it might be a question of getting used to it, but it's definitely a step up from the bra.

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Self-monitoring is hard

2018-07-09T20:45:31Z

Posted by: liv

So I tried week 3 a second time, and didn't at all think I was going particularly slowly, or struggling, but I ended up with a pace of 9'24'' /km instead of the 8'47'' I'd managed two days before. I know one shouldn't over-analyse, but that one threw me for a loop, not because I'm upset that I had a slow run, but because I lost all confidence in my ability to judge how fast I'm going.

The next time I went out, I decided to do something different. I ran 1 km continuously (conveniently the distance from my house to my boyfriend's house), and then stopped to have a cup of tea with BF and ran the 1 km back. Just over 10 minutes each way, but that's the first time since I restarted running that I've actually managed a continuous kilometre at all, so I'm quite pleased with that. Also I expect I'll be at least a bit faster when it's not 30 degrees and humid.

Today we had Actual! Clouds! and I ran week 3, plus a third repeat of the 90 seconds + 3 minutes pattern, at a pace of 8'31'' /km. I am not surprised that I went a bit faster in the cooler weather, but I didn't think I was at anything like the fastest pace I've recorded in a month. So apparently I can not begin to tell the difference between an 8½ minute average pace and a 9½ minute average pace, but at least I'm picking up speed again.

This means I'm done with with the very short sprint intervals, and I move on to Week 4. I am a bit nervous about only getting 90 seconds of rest; I usually find I don't really recover in 90 seconds. If it's too hard for me I might extend the walking intervals somewhat.

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Week 3: 8'47'' /km

2018-07-01T16:17:43Z

Posted by: liv

The heatwave continues but if I don't run when it's hot I never will. I went out with jack again, and I had my first try at Week 3. I took things reasonably easy, and was slightly slower than my week 2 runs but also didn't feel exhausted at any point. I'll see if I can manage a little bit faster next time.

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Week 2: 8'34'' /km

2018-06-27T19:32:14Z

Posted by: liv

It's still very hot. Today I ran trivially faster than the last time I tried the standard Week 2 run, within the error of measurement exactly the same pace and distance. But this time the whole thing felt a bit better. The first couple of intervals were only a little faster than the later ones, and I didn't feel like keeping going for 90 seconds was a horrible ordeal. I think I'm ready to move up to Week 3, and I think that's going to do me more good than trying to get the pace for Week 2 under 8½' /km.

jack came out with me but this time he was aiming for a longer continuous run at a faster pace than I could keep up with. Which meant I walked back to our start point on my own to wait for him. Two (separate) annoying jerks decided to hit on / harass me, at least they didn't do it while I was concentrating on running but only during the cooldown. And they were annoying rather than threatening, but really, I could do without.

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Zombies Run 5K week 2

2018-06-25T19:22:52Z

Posted by: liv

I had a hard time motivating myself to go out in this heatwave, and I thought, some novelty might help. So I had a go at a workout from week 2 of Zombies Run 5 K training.

Zom25K is structured very differently from the C25K programmes I'm used to (mostly the NHS one but others I've seen are roughly similar). Instead of a steady progression of 1 minute, 90 seconds, 3 minutes, 5 minutes, it goes from 15 second intervals to 30 second intervals to... 5 minutes??? I've been doing 6 x 90 second intervals as fast as I can push myself, so changing to 5 x 30 seconds felt like a big step down. Especially since the app recommends that you run these intervals slowly; I feel that I am not going to build up my fitness meaningfully by running slowly for 30 seconds, so I ran as fast as I could bear to in the heat.

The other thing that's different about Zom25K is that in the early weeks it suggests you finish out the workout with a long 'freeform' segment where you can choose your own balance of running and walking. I think I would have had a really hard time with that if I were a complete beginner to running, but in this case I jogged slowly for 5 minutes, walked for 3 minutes and ran a bit faster for the last two minutes.

My total distance over 30 minutes was 3 km; I wasn't really expecting an amazing pace when it was boiling hot and I spent less than 10 minutes of the workout actually running. So I think that was a useful workout, but I am probably going to go back to the more conventional programme, possibly with the normal Zombies game later on when the runs get long enough to be boring.

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Week 2: 8'36'' /km

2018-06-23T19:41:26Z

Posted by: liv

Went out with jack, managed to find a pace where I was pushing myself but could just barely manage the 6 x 90 second intervals. Overall average pace just over the 8½' /km, so that's an improvement. jack ran alongside me and then carried on for another 10 minutes while I was getting my breath back.

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Encouraged today!

2018-06-23T10:27:58Z

Posted by: angrboda

Maybe it's something magical about Saturdays. It went really well last Saturday and the same was true today without even the full English first! (I still think a cooked breakfast must be the key to success, though not slimness)

Anyway for it to go so well today was really great seeing as how Monday this week was a struggle and Wednesday even more so. Having finished level 1, I'm just repeating it for the time being before moving to level 2. Partly because it's nice to not have it get harder all the time, but also because I'm waiting for one of those armbands for my phone. Hopefully it should arrive Monday, so I don't have to keep moving my sim card to the old, increasingly unreliable phone every time I'm running. I don't think the old one really liked being stuffed down my sports bra, and I'm certainly not doing that with the brand new one.

Wednesday was actually the first time it was so difficult that I couldn't finish the program. Twice I had to stop running a minute or so before it told me to. There was absolutely none of that today. Once I even ran for a couple of seconds before I realised I'd just been told to stop and hadn't been paying attention!

That said, though, I still didn't finish the program today either, but that was due to a Pokemon Go raid battle that I would have missed if I'd finished the run first. Priorities, I haz them!

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Week 2 tribulations

2018-06-21T19:29:38Z

Posted by: liv

So having built up to a full half hour in 1 minute intervals, at a pace I was pleased with, I was confident about week 2.

First attempt, last weekend: I had some bad news and was somewhat teary, and crying is never great for running. I pushed ahead anyway, and then had trouble with my timing app, Intervaly. It often crashes when I get a notification from another program, and I ought to experiment with different apps but my phone often doesn't have enough memory to cope with switching, so I'm not sure how much this problem is fixable. Anyway, I spent some of the run faffing about restarting my timer, and much of it not really trusting that I'd get the signal to end my run intervals. I came out with a pace of 8'45'' /km, and feeling I was probably capable of doing week 2 a bit faster than that.

Then I was travelling for work in a pattern that meant I couldn't reasonably run until today. I just horribly messed up the pacing. I started out way too fast and completely collapsed part way through the second interval. I took a full rest break (standing still until I could breathe comfortably, no walking) and then attempted the last four intervals at my comfortable distance pace. The 'average' was still 8'45'' but I think that's a bit meaningless when it's two very fast intervals, a rest and then four slow intervals.

I'm not sure what's best to do at this point. Try once more and see if it works any better next time is probably the first step. My worry is that if I run the intervals fast enough to get the benefit of doing short, intense intervals, then 2 minutes isn't actually enough for me to recover. But it might get better with practice; C25K is set up so that the first time you try a new workout you are supposed to find it tough. If I try three week 2 runs and I'm still struggling, I can either go for longer walking breaks between my 90 second runs, or I can try alternating fast running intervals with slow running intervals for a bit.

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c25k @ 2018-06-16T10:33:00

2018-06-16T08:59:08Z

Posted by: angrboda

Today was the closest I have come to repeating a session this time around. I had a hard time of it last time where I almost didn't think I'd be able to complete the last running interval. It went fine during the first half but the second half was severely dampened by fatigue and a slight tummy ache. It was such a struggle and I only just barely managed it. So I thought that I might have to repeat that one today. The increase in difficulty with this app is so gentle though, always one minute at the time, so I thought I'd try and try to repeat only if I actually had to give up.

I'm pleased to report that today's run went much better! I was able to keep a more or less steady pace during all the running and there were neither leg pains of any sort nor tummy aches. I'm sure it has something to do with the delicious full English Husband cooked for me this morning. (Yes it does!)

And as a bonus, I met this adorable chap on the way.
(I also shared this photo with common_nature, so apologies if you get it twice.)

So in total today I ran for 20 minutes, and next time will be the last session in level 1. I'm dithering a bit on whether or not to do repeats of that last one for a while as a sort of little rest or pressing straight on with level 2. We'll see.

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Week1: 8'45'' /km

2018-06-13T20:25:09Z

Posted by: liv

I was feeling a bit off today, maybe an incipient cold or just even worse allergies. Or maybe it was psychological because I'd committed myself to doing a whole half hour. I wasn't sure whether I should cry off, or cut the run short. I decided to keep going, which I think was a good decision.

I wasn't able to repeat the fast pace I'd managed the first two runs, but I did complete the whole 30 minutes with 1 minute running intervals. My overall pace was slower at 8'45'' /km, but faster than the 9 to 9½ minutes I'd been running when I was doing 5 minute intervals. And I came away feeling, that was hard but I did it, rather than having to deal with the set-back of giving up.

Plan for the weekend: run 1 of week 2, and see if I can keep going for the whole 90 seconds at a pace where I'm really pushing myself.

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Week 1: 8' /km

2018-06-11T19:54:25Z

Posted by: liv

I was reasonably pleased with my first attempt at week 1, so I decided I could probably stretch myself by adding an extra couple of intervals (10 intervals / 25 minutes instead of the official 8 intervals / 20 minutes). Conditions were not exactly pleasant; it's boiling hot, and the pollen counts are off the charts.

But I did in fact manage 10 intervals, and my pace wasn't any slower than when I was only doing 8. 8' /km overall. My pacing wasn't spot on; I went a bit too fast for the first couple of intervals, and was starting to drag a bit by the end, but nothing terrible. I think I'll go for 12 intervals / 30 minutes next time, so that moving to the 90 second intervals in week 2 feels like a step down rather than a step up.

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whimper

2018-06-11T18:37:00Z

Posted by: angrboda

We were away Saturday to Sunday this weekend, and for a variety of reasons, running on Saturday morning before we went was not practical. What I should have done, was do it Friday after work, even though I try to avoid doing it after work if I can. I go for Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. I'm part-time and Wednesday is my day off so it's only Monday where I have to do it in the afternoon. But anyway, I did it Sunday after we got home and that was fine.

But then I didn't want to mess up the schedule for all of this week by not lining it up with Wednesday.

To make a long story short (or a short story long whichever way you look at it), I have today discovered exactly why it is there's supposed to be a day's rest in between, especially when you are a beginner like me. Oh gosh.

I made it, but my thighs were protesting wildly the whole time and there was not much in the way of speed in general. I didn't get nearly as far before hitting the halfway point either, and the app still signalled 'workout ended' before I was back home.

But at least I did it. Scared to look at the run for next time... For the first time I'm considering a repeat.

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Starting over

2018-06-09T11:16:49Z

Posted by: liv

So I did C25K back in autumn 2012 (when I started the community with rmc28). And I managed to keep up regular running until I moved house in spring 2014. I was running a bit for 2 years after that, but never really got back to it being an established habit, and I kind of stopped by summer 2016. It was never a deliberate decision, I just... didn't get round to it, and than it had been months and then a year and I never had the motivation to start again.

This spring my partners' 9yo wanted to participate in a virtual Harry Potter race, and that was my motivation to restart training. I trained for a month and then did a Parkrun, and it turned out that a month was not enough training; Parkrun was a disaster. The least I can say for myself is that I got back in the saddle: I've continued running 3X a week since the Parkrun. But I'm flailing about and not making any progress and it's a bit miserable. So, partly inspired by angrboda I have decided to restart the C25K programme properly.

Today was week 1, run 1. I did the whole thing at 8'/km, which is about as fast as I ever run, even though I was spending more time walking than running. I found a pace that I can sustain for 8 lots of one minute, so that was really pleasing. I have been running along the guided busway which is straight and flat with few distractions like having to cross roads. Also there's a convenient 2.5 km section between Histon and Milton Road, so running along that and back is a nice 5K track.

Tech: I used Intervaly for the timing, which just beeps at you at intervals you pre-set. And Runkeeper for the distance measurement. I didn't listen to music or an audio book because with short intervals I can't really focus. I might go back to having something to keep my brain occupied as a I get further through the programme, though.

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c25k @ 2018-06-04T18:25:00

2018-06-04T16:39:15Z

Posted by: angrboda

Severe lack of motivation this afternoon. Didn't manage to get out there until after Husband came home.

Says he: Shall I play you some inspirational music?
Thought I: Oh lord, here comes Eye of the Tiger...

Close. It was music from a Rocky film, just not that one.

Last time was the first instance of 2 minute intervals, and today there were 3 minute intervals. Really stepping up the difficulty now. I kinda hope I get to stagnate somewhere for a bit, but considering the amount of workouts in this program (end goal this level is running for 20 minutes) I don't think I will. Not unless I start repeating some of them, which I'm trying to avoid unless absolutely necessary. So we shall see how strong I actually am, I suppose.

Anyway, I thought it went... okay. I thought it went better than last time, and looking at Garmin Connect afterwards and comparing the two runs, it seems I did them at roughly the same distance, time and speed. Which means that today, running a little bit more than last time, I was actually a bit slower, but while still hard it didn't feel quite so hard. I suppose that's what counts really.

It occurs to me that if anybody here uses Garmin Connect, they should feel free to look me up if they want to hold me to this project there as well. I'm Angrboda there as well, and my icon is the same as my default here, the carved dragon head on blue background.

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Children puzzle me.

2018-05-30T12:56:10Z

Posted by: angrboda

So I did the next one with the two minute intervals in it. This time rather than just heading towards the next village and turning back at the halfway point, I went to run circles through this teensy tiny bit of a copse nearby. Which is good, because if you're lucky, you can do circles round and round in there and never meet another soul. I, however, met a man with a dog on the narrowest path (he and the dog stood to the side for me in gentlemanly fashion.) and a an entire school class on an outing! Argh! And if only some of those children would have looked where they were going, then maybe they wouldn't have nearly run me down. Yes, run me down. Yes, he was on foot. About the age of six or seven, I think. Tells you something about the state of me when I'm struggling to run for two ~~eons~~minutes... Oh, and also, what is it with children and the irrepressible need to know the names of complete strangers? I think I'll be back to just the road to the next village next time. Not so crowded.

I did manage to complete the program, although I was relieved when it was done. The very first time I did this last week, it was really very hard, but at least then I didn't do it on legs that had already been put through rather more work than they were used to. I'm having a fair bit of that at the moment. Hard to imagine that at some point the muscles that I'm told I have will start getting stronger and it will help. It is also becoming quite clear to me that I need shoes with more support of the inside of the foot, so I shall have to be looking into that sooner rather than later.

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Third time running today.

2018-05-28T17:19:46Z

Posted by: angrboda

I was actually intending to give a small update for each run, just to say that I had done it and perhaps create some way of accountability. If accountability is the word that I want (or even spelled right). Except I totally forgot all about that plan by the time Saturday's run came around.

But I've done the third one now, and was up to 8 x 1 minute running. I peeked at next time's session that introduces some 2 minute intervals, so that answers the question of whether it's just going to continue adding another 1 minute interval on top. I'm sure it will be fine because it's not like I haven't ever done this before and felt precisely the same way and have it turn out to be totally fine and doable. But I'm still feeling apprehensive about it.

One thing I've discovered in the past week is that my vivosmart still has that weird issue where it thinks that for a split-second I ran really very fast indeed! Husband and I worked out that if Usain Bolt can run 100 meters in, let's say, 10 seconds, then that must mean he's going at a clip of 36 km/h. Let's just say that Garmin evidently thinks that I (moderately chubby, very unfit and closer to middle age than childhood) momentarily move significantly faster than Usain Bolt... I somehow don't think that's very likely. It's irritating because any information it gives me to do with average speed and such becomes pretty much useless. And it's the sort of information I would have liked to use to compare runs with and see if I got faster later on. Anyway, from what I gather apparently this should be helped by working out my stride length, so I'll have to have Husband help me with that.

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Hello!

2018-05-23T14:57:19Z

Posted by: angrboda

Anybody still reading this comm?

For the first time in oh-gosh-let's-not-talk-about-that! I decided to attempt to take up running again. My last aborted attempt was little over a year ago, I think. Because of Reasons I just didn't possess the extra energy for it when coming home from work.

But we're trying again now, because I should like to shed a few excess kilos this year and yoga, although pleasant, isn't really cutting the mustard. Especially not when I don't remember to do it daily. So time to supplement with something else.

This time I decided not to use the NHS program, primarily because my ipod battery was flat but also because I've done that so many times that although I do like Evil Laura's tips and tricks and gentle encouragements, I know them pretty much by heart now and that means they just don't seem to work as well anymore. If you know what I mean. I know what I mean.

So I had a poke about for something to put on my phone and decided to try an app called Start Running. I just wanted something completely simple. It works with whatever music or other you want to listen to and just blends in. Each change in pace is preceeded by some beeps and the voice saying 'Running/walking for x minutes' and then it gave the halfway point of the whole program and a message at the end and that was it. It was discreet and the beeps were clear enough that they were easy to tell apart from the music.

Have to say, though. One minute running nearly killed me! There had better be some praise for me when Husband comes home.

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