I returned from my run this morning feeling as though I had been back at school. Today's run was a whole new experience, during which I did some things wrong and got lost, did other things right, and I really needed to work hard.
This was the first session following my benchmark run on one of Jeff Galloway's Garmin Coach runs. I had done my homework and dutifully watched the video clips and read the guides that come as part of the plan, but I was still unsure how the format of the session would play out in real time once I started it on my watch. I had a lot of unanswered questions running round in my head before I set off:
๐ค How long is the whole session? 30 minutes-ish? A 5k-ish?
๐ค What's the lap button they keep mentioning in the run plan? Where is it on my watch? Do I have one? When do I press it?
๐ค How do I transition through the phases of the plan? Does it just run automatically?
Some of these questions (e.g. the lap button) I had tried to answer with the help of Google before I set off, but I really wasn't any the wiser .....๐. I was running blind and into the unknown, it felt like an adventure. ๐ฉ๐ผ Oh come on! Be open-minded and just take it as it comes......
About 10 minutes into the plan all was going well. I felt good, I'd completed the warm up walk and Cadence Drills no problem, and then it happened. Somewhere around the Acceleration-Glider Drills part I started button pressing, bad idea ๐ฅบ. Suddenly things were not making sense on the watch screen any more and I realised I was completely lost. I'd been over-pressing buttons on my watch because I thought I had to press the lap button (still not sure which button that was supposed to be) in order to move on, when the words "BEHIND", or something similarly terminal-sounding, ominously appeared on my watch screen. I stopped, paused my watch (or so I thought - just more button pressing really), scrolled through the plan on my watchface to see if I could find where I was supposed to be, nope.... ๐ฌ. I realised that I was completely lost, not geographically lost, but in the world of the Garmin Coach Plan I had absolutely no idea where I was.
๐ฉ๐ผ Okay, I thought. Choice to be made here DD. Option one (and the most appealing at this point) I ditch the plan, just choose to do a "normal" run for about 30 minutes and then head home, or option two (the braver one) I restart the whole thing. The fault is with me after all, not the program.....
I decided to be brave and restart the plan..... ๐ช๐ผ
........ In retrospect, and it is always easier to be wise after the event, I might not have chosen the brave option two had I realised that I would be out for a further hour and a quarter and cover a total of 8.6km on top of whatever I had achieved on my abandoned first attempt. I kept having to add loops to my route as I ran as I had no idea how much more I had to do. I did however learn to keep my button-pressing to a minimum and just let the session run its course, successfully this time ๐ โ๏ธ.
My lovely husband phoned me during my cool down walk - "Where are you?" he asked all worried. "Is everything okay?" I reassured him I was fine and on my way home, although I was feeling pretty shattered having added Jeffโs "Magic Mile" and 4 x 800m Race Pace Drills to my repertoire during my second run through of the plan - I have to admit that I was working hard to hold on to the "Magic" ๐ต at this point.
However a cool down walk is good for both body and mind, and by the time I reached home I was feeling pretty proud of myself for being brave and sticking at it when the going got a bit tough. Typing this up from the comfort of my sofa I realised this is the furthest I have run since I did my 10k at the start of October, so that's not too shoddy. All my very sporadic runs since then have been no more than 5k. A pat on the back in the form of a "Good job" comment from Jeff on completion made it all worth while ๐. It was nice to know my effort hadn't gone unnoticed ๐.
All in all, a little bit of open-mindedness and a try and try again attitude paid off, so do stick at it if you have a tough day or things don't go as you plan. I'm still shattered though, and I don't think I'll need any rocking tonight ๐ค ๐ ๐ด .