W4R2 - failure and success simultaneously

I should have done this run on Thursday, but I'd got a bit messed up with emails and forgot about two jobs due in that day, so I was working like crazy to return them by end of business, and then had to work late into the night to do what was due back on Friday.

On Friday, the rain was abysmal, non-stop all day with phases of thunder and lightning. I'm a wimp and didn't dare go out in that. I find constant low atmospheric pressure really drains me, and I've been feeling exhausted for weeks now with this weather. I woke up about midday on Saturday, got out of bed, and promptly got back in again and dozed on and off till 7 pm!

So now it's Sunday and no more excuses! The session started fine, and then just as the second 90-minute walk was starting, I must have shifted my grip on my mp3 player, because it suddenly shifted into week 7!!! It takes me over 30 minutes at times to find the right track when sitting at home with my glasses on - the titles are so long, I can't see the important information about what week it is, and the tracks are not in the right order and numerous attempts to try and get them right have not succeeded.

So I had to turn off the mp3 and look at the time instead. That put me bang into the same situation that used to defeat me when I tried running before. In addition, I was now going round and round a small supermarket car park near the end of a route that had proved too short. I wanted to complete the last 5-minute run before going back into the main road, where I might be stuck waiting at traffic lights. I looked at my watch, only 20 seconds done, carried on, looked again, only one minute.... well, defeat struck and I ended up walking for twenty seconds or so before I was able to run again.

However, when I uploaded my Garmin record to my training log at Fetcheveryone, I was delighted to find that this session had resulted in my best overall pace so far, as well as the fastest km and mile so far. That is why I consider this session to be both a failure and a success.

I'm hoping session 3 will go OK. I REALLY do not want to repeat this week. I loathe the awful rapping(?) that accompanies the first 5-minute run. It stresses me terribly and the ugliness of the sounds makes me want to cry

I wish someone would do a C25K programme with classical music. I would find that far more uplifting and inspiring than all this pop stuff.

[runningnearbeirut Graduate]

First of all, well done - you got out there and when you look back, I'm sure you've come a long way since W1R1.

Getting rid of the music is a great incentive to keep going! I think there are some apps or something (I'm not really very technically minded) where you can have Laura and then choose your own playlist. If that doesn't work, then you could always try something like endomondo on your phone. You can put in the intervals you want to do (5 mins low intensity for your warm up walk, then whatever time you need to run can be medium intensity with low intensity for the walking intervals). You can then have your own music playing and it gets interrupted with beeps and a voice telling you to start/stop running.

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I don't know how to make play lists. I also don't know how to play music on my phone.

I don't use the mp3 for anything except C25K. I don't like wearing headphones so do not walk round the streets listening to things.

[Jellymum Graduate]

It was a success for sure - you carried on despite the mp3 issues, and even increased your pace. Sorry I can't be much help on the technical issues - are there any young people around you could ask? My daughters definitely know much more about that tech stuff than me ....