It was nearly Week 9

[Purple_faced_woman]

This was week 9 of the programme for me (although 10th week of running as I repeated week 4). However I pulled a muscle in my neck which made it uncomfortable to swallow, yawn or find a painfree position in which to sleep. I took Ibuprofen, but this made me prone to falling asleep mid-sentence and having some really odd day-/night-dreams, and hallucinations of weird conversations with people who aren't there. It also gave me an upset tummy. So my W9 R1 started well enough but was interrupted after about 10 minutes with an emergency trip into the undergrowth. I couldn't get my (free with something my husband bought and therefore not very good) MP3 player to rewind, so I started all over again, but ran from the beginning of the 5 minute warm up to the 5-minutes to go warning. So a full 30 minute run and a 10 minute pre-run - 40 minutes in total, and I had some difficulty walking a straight line for the cool-down.

The next run was worse, with a 2 minute run, a 10 minute run, a 2.5 minute run and a 15 minute run. At most I ran 29.5 minutes but it was all in pieces.

I stopped the Ibuprofen and went onto paracetamol only for the last couple of days. My head is much clearer and my insides have sorted themselves out. I went for run 3 this morning. It was very hard, but I managed to keep going for the whole 30 minutes. I felt pretty shattered at the end.

I had managed the Week 8 runs with relative ease and hadn't thought the 2 extra minutes would be that hard, but I claim mitigating circumstances! Although I managed to complete the third run, I can't count this as graduation week, so I shall repeat the 3 runs next week, and, assuming I am successful, put in a claim for my graduation badge then. One more week to go - hurrah!

[Idolitorus Graduate]

I sometime fall asleep mid typin.............................................................................ZZzzzzz

[Idolitorus Graduate]

The pulled neck muscle sounds really painful.

Not sleeping properly is absolutely no fun at all.

I can't take ibuprofen as it is an NSAID (like my diabetes meds) but I know from old that it used to upset my tummy.

Good luck with your re-runs. You have done them once, even if they were in pieces, so you will definitely manage them second time around.

[Purple_faced_woman Graduate in reply to Idolitorus]

This last week has been a bit of a problem, but hopefully I'm through the worst now.

Thanks for the sympathy and encouragement.

[gary_bart]

Well the last run looks like a complete Week 3 run? So then you only have two to go? And then you can do a "lap of honour" run to follow your graduation. A "week" is just a set of any 3 consecutive properly spaced runs, you know?

[Purple_faced_woman Graduate]

Thanks, Gary. Possibly more of a "flap of honour", but that sounds good.

[AncientMum Graduate]

My goodness, that is a pretty extreme reaction to ibuprofen! Hope you're feeling much better now so you can graduate in a blaze of glory. Good luck!

[Purple_faced_woman Graduate]

Tons better, thanks, now I've stopped the Ibuprofen. And thanks for your good wishes.