So... I ran 5k yesterday (I did!), and have been ever so good with my rest days this far, but Tuesday nights I have to wait for my son for an hour at an athletics stadium... so I thought, ok, I’ll just do a short one... but maybe a faster one?!! Please?! I want to see what different speeds feel like... Oh yeah... I’m a graduate. Let’s do it!
So I put some music on... I’m finding I’m getting really fussy about music now. If it isn’t right, it interferes, and even if it’s good, it becomes background. I want to be in the run, in the moment. Music seems to take me out of the zone. Funny, I loved the tunes at the beginning of C25k, but I wasn’t really enjoying the running then... The guided runs with talking and interviews I have been enjoying; might be time to try some podcasts...
So my plan was to walk warm up, run 1k slowish, walk 1k, run as fast as fitness levels will sustain, and then walk 1k. I thought that counted as maybe 1k of proper effort?!
My warm up run was a bit too fast for a proper warm up at 6’04”. I had been aiming more for 6’45”. Note to self: I’m really rubbish at pacing... my brisk walking pace was 8’50” for k2... then came the ‘run’. Oh my Lord. I wasn’t sprinting, not by a long chalk, but I was running and I realised again just what a long way 1k can feel and how long a minute can be and how unfit I still am. I slowed down but couldn’t recover, so just kept gasping for air and plodding on. When the 3k was called I stopped dead and pretended to be pausing to do lunges, when actually, I was just desperately trying to breathe. I started walking and recovered pretty quickly, walking the final 1k in 8’58”. (Actually, I tried some wiggly walking and found I could go under 8’ quite easily, but I got a stitch doing it).
I didn’t know how fast I had gone as NRC was calling out the overall average and I was too zonked to count time. I checked it after and... 5’13”! Completely unsustainable, of course, but hey ho.
👟👟 ⌚️ 👟👟 😴
My first 10k
first interval run with Coach Bennet
