Good morning all you lovely people🤩
It feels funny posting on this group being a new C25k graduate but it's great.
I did my first CR yesterday and it felt good. I really felt I wanted some more guidance so I used the guided run on C25k+ coached by Laura. I have always run with Jo, so it was different but I liked it.
The warm up started off with music to walk in time to. Laura then gave a run down of what was to come. There's also a version with no intro which I might use on other occasions. This session was all based on using the beat of the music to keep the pace. After the walk, it would be 10 mins at 150 BPM, 15mins at 155 BPM and the final 5 mins at 160bpm.
Going by my previous run stats, by average cadence including my warm up and cool down walks has been 152 so I thought this would be doable.
The walk phase was nice and brisk, probable moreso than I have done in my other runs, then started the first run phase. 150bpm. It felt difficult to stay at that place as I had clearly been used to running faster than that so it felt a little bit too slow. . I want to learn, so i stuck with it. I knew that recently I had probably been going too fast but couldn't get myself to go slower, this was perfect to get that happening. After a few minutes, I settled into the pace and found my breathing was nearly normal. At the 10 minute mark, the pace increased. This felt a bit more like it, but I was so pleased to notice that my breathing was still really relaxed and fully conversational I felt. I was very aware of this because Laura reminded me to breath normally. I thought, yes, I am breathing very normally.
It wasn't until I was about 13 mins into that second run phase that I felt like I was breathing heavier. The music was not familiar to me at all but it has a really strong temp and I managed to keep with it the whole time. 5 minutes to go, the pace upped to 160bmp. I really could tell this time, but with 5 minutes to go it was very doable. I was feeling it more but my tank still had reserves.
When it came to the cool down walk I was feeling pleased with how it has gone, especially given how windy that run had been. I felt good to be staying my consultation phase and that is had a challenge to meet. I do think I will use this podcast again at least a few times to get me running easier.
I was interested to see on my stats that my overall moving time was 40 mins and I covered 5.01k, although frustratingly, Strava recorded 4.99k with 30 seconds less moving time. This was my first time using Strava so I'll be mindful of that in future runs. My last 3 runs, so all of week 9, has got 5k but that was incorporating most of the walk section so knowing I'd run at a slower cadence for a lot of it was heartening.
Also my overall cadence average was 142. I feel like that was a much more beneficial run in developing my stamina and endurance than the way I had run in my previous week 9 runs.
I'm pleased to now be embarking on the next stage of my running journey and still able to share my experiences. I am feeling good to be learning ways to do things and find out what works for me. It's also a whole new topic of conversation with people who I know, that run, I'm able to gather tips from their experience too as well as building on my own.
Happy running people, enjoy your day🤩🏃🏼♀️👍
week3run1 ✅. 3 x 17 mins with 1 min walks. 
How did your parkrun or (not)parkrun go?
