Having done this before, 2 years ago, I was looking forward to week 2 without any serious trepidation. Week 1 was good, the weather is getting better almost every day as the snow continues to melt away, and I feel confident.
I started my "new" podcast and set off on my favorite path, enjoying the bright sun and temperate breeze.
Much of the snow is gone now, particularly in sunny spots, with wide swaths of brown detritus revealed in anticipation of the new growth sprouting up. Glaciers in miniature abound, calving little chunks which float along the morraine of the running paths and edges of hills. These babies cling to the sides of the rises, or slide down to the roads just like their monstrous cousins, the proper glaciers that cover the nearby mountain passes. And just like the big ones in the warmer months, they are now pitted with crevasses and pits of ice-melt, with teeny tiny little under-ground aquifers.
It amused me to see such monumental and catastrophic tectonic events occuring on a Lilliputian scale, with myself the giant tip-toeing around them.
Meanwhile, the music came back in spurts of recognition and good humor, as did Laura's tips for running form and breathing. It felt like an old friend come back - don't we love having more of those? Oh yes, I think - I know how this all goes. I remember it all....
Nevertheless, I got all confused near the end of the run. Laura told me I was almost done and to start running again when I happened to be at a steep downhill path, well shaded and covered stem-to-stern in ice - where I just couldn't run at all, for fear of falling long and hard. Instead, I resolved to walk until I could get to a safer area, and then make up the missed running interval.
So I did. I got to a dry area after about 60 of the 90 seconds through the "run" portion, and got started, continuing into the cooldown walk. I was alarmed at how little distance I had covered, presumably since I had to slow down for the ice in a few places, and figured I would rather error on the side of more running than less. Without a watch, I was not entirely sure when I had reached 90 seconds of running, so I carried on a bit more. Then, when I expected Laura to tell more that I had another 3ish minutes of cooldown to go, and how totally fabulous I was, she surprised me utterly.
She told me to start running again.... Huh?... Oh... I had run through the end of one running interval, through the walking recovery portion, and now into another run portion by accident. I had forgotten that "almost done" in Laura's lexicon does not mean "this is the end". It means I still have a couple intervals to go....
What to do? I don't want to miss yet another interval, so I just keep running. Until finally Laura tells me I am actually done with my run. Luckily, I was going downhill for this whole time, having gone uphill almost continuously in the first half of the podcast. Otherwise, I am sure I would have been hurting.
It's official: experience does not equal good memory. I should have remembered how this went, but I didn't. Oh well.
I didn't intend to do it, and don't plan to repeat it until I get to the correct part of the program, but I ended up running over 4 minutes continuously at the end of my run. I am actually pretty thrilled that this time around, C25K seems to be going so well. So far, it is considerably easier, even after 2 years, and I have high hopes for another successful go of it.
Time and a half
W7R1 and I felt like a runner!!!
W2R1 question
Running with Samantha...
Started week 6 and feel great! But Laura has had her last chance!
