Well today was W12R1 for me and the C25k programme, and I decided last night that I will move to starting Juju’s Magic 10 programme with my Saturday run. My plan is to keep Saturday Parkruns for my weekly 5k, then to do my longer runs on Mon or Tues, and my shorter recovery runs on Wed or Thurs. (I’m not sure if any speed intervals will get included or not at this point, as I mainly want to concentrate on building distance first rather than speeding up.)
Anyway, after looking at my Runkeeper steps per minute charts, and deciding these seemed to record a bit low when I ran with the Stepping Stones podcast (running at 150/155/160bpm - but seeming to record at about 148/150/151bpm), I looked at some of my faster 5ks (averaging steps at 164bpm), then added a fudge factor and decided to try and run 5k this morning to a Podrunner track at 173bpm (called Passo Vivace - step lively - the hint should have been in the name!)
Interestingly, for the first 0.5k of running, my pace (ie km per min speed) ended up quite a bit slower than normal, despite my legs getting a bit of a shock trying to step that quickly straight after the warm up walk!😣 My usual habit seems to be to do the start of the run faster, then to settle into a more steady pace later, so I figured perhaps this was good. I seemed to end up then speeding up a bit later on today, though. I guess I was striding out more once I got going, and suspect this was also the long slightly downhill section. 😊
Once I was going slightly uphill again, I found I was having to miss some beats out (sort of 1234, 1234, 1234...1234, but oh, 1 is suddenly on the other foot now! 😂), and Runkeeper showed my steps per minute to shift from about 173bpm for the first 2k, then to about 153bpm for the last 2k, with a bit of crazy oscillation between the 2 step rates for the middle 1k!
Looking back at more Runkeeper charts, I sometimes seem to keep my steps per minute pretty constant for the whole 5k, but I also sometimes have this sudden shift to a lower step rate about halfway through. My fastest 5k so far was last Saturday’s Parkrun, when Runkeeper showed me consistently at 154steps/min for the last 4k (but 167-175 for the first k, when I set off far too fast!)
So my plan is to experiment more with some slower Podrunner bpm tracks later, and with the C25k+ Stamina podcast (which starts you running at 158bpm, but I haven’t listened beyond that yet).
To be honest, though, at the moment I seem to run faster and more comfortably with my own music and by letting myself just set my own pace. So while starting my 10K journey, I think I’m going to let myself do just that. (Sorry Laura, I’m sure you had better plans...😂❤️)
This was the first time I’d listened to a Podrunner track for 30mins, and I did start getting a bit concerned when a quiet voice within the track started whispering “stay with me” and various other phrases. Fearful of subliminal advertising, I was half expecting to find myself diverting to Tesco’s on the way round to buy a certain brand of toothpaste or something! 😂😂😂 Thankfully I didn’t seem to behave anymore weirdly than normal, so Podrunner seems safe after all. 👍😎
My only real shock today was to head round my normal route and find my big, loyal supporter gnome with his “welcome” sign and cheerful grin had GONE MISSING! I know I’ve been swanning off to Parkruns and to local sports fields to do speed intervals, so I can only think the poor guy is wondering where I am and has set off searching...🙁 Hopefully we’ll find each other again soon. Maybe he’s sulking because I planned to take him on my away day run to the seaside then chickened out of kidnapping him. Or maybe he’s also been supporting other C25kers, and one of them has taken him out somewhere else more scenic today instead! 😀
I’m now off to write Juju’s Magic 10 plan out and stick it on our fridge... 🌟😎🌟
Happy Running everyone who’s out today! 🏃♀️🏃♂️❤️😎