Surprisingly good run! Bridge to 10k w5 r3

[RainbowC]

I've often (well, reasonably often) had a surprisingly bad run - you know the ones when there's no obvious reason for it to be difficult, but it just feels like climbing a mountain. In a blizzard. With bare feet. Well, on Monday I had the exact opposite! I hadn't wanted to go out, but since I'd put it off from Sunday knew I needed to, so I reluctantly got changed, laced up my shoes, and headed out into a lovely evening. Three minutes into my warm-up walk it started to rain lightly, but I won't dissolve so I didn't head straight home. Instead, I did the full two 30-minute runs, enjoyed seeing a beautiful rainbow and watching the sun gradually set.

The couple of small hills that I usually don't enjoy at all seemed to fly past - I only noticed them enough to think 'gosh, I normally find this much harder work - and I remember when it was all but impossible!'

And after running for 55 minutes, I even had enough left in my legs to push for last few minutes! Having not worried about my pace at all, just made sure I was comfortable throughout, it was actually very marginally quicker than several of my recent outings. I honestly am amazed that I can use the word 'comfortable' to describe running for so long!

I still wouldn't say I'm looking forward to 60 mins tonight with no walking at all - but it doesn't feel quite as impossible as it did last week... And I'm starting to think that 10k under 80 mins might not be unrealistic - and I might just manage to run the whole thing, too...!

[Peter_B Graduate]

Sounds like a very good run. I know where you're coming from with some runs being inexplicably bad.

I'm just behind you on the Bridge to 10k (don't wobble it!) - I'll be doing W5R3 tomorrow morning.

[Widgety Graduate]

I just graduated yesterday and was thinking about doing this programme to get up to 10k and hopefully improve my 5k time along the way, your post just gave me a little push to decide to do it.

Well done for getting out there and running for an hour! Impressive stuff.

Widgety.

[Tomas Graduate]

Sounds like a great run, and I'm not surprised that you were quicker than you thought. I find that the less I focus on the running (oh I'm tired, it hurts, I can't breathe, I'm thirsty, are we there yet?), there more the kilometers just slip under the feet and the quicker I tend to be. So well done you for getting in the right headspace, and keep calm about tonight's 60 minutes: you can do it!

[Wonkyknee Graduate]

So much of it is down to belief and confidence - hold onto it! Well done

[Pigivi]

Sounds like a really enjoyable run - like Tomas said, the less I focus on the running the easier it feels. And I also find that if I walk or slow down for a short period after the first 30minutes, the rest of the hour is effortless, I don't know if it is normal, but I really enjoy best running after the first 40 minutes and up 1 and half hour ?!