That last 5 minutes...

[Catey1978]

So I'm making my way nicely through week 7 for the most part, but for some reason when I hit the 20 minute mark it all goes a bit downhill, and not in a good way. That last five minutes is almost defeating me every time, my breathing seems to suddenly be all over the place and even though my body feels fine really, my brain is yelling at me to stop. Now so far I've managed to ignore it and make it to the end but I would welcome any suggestions around breathing or, well, basically anything that works for this last five minutes I'd love to get it sorted before moving onto week 8 and adding even more minutes on.

[Natasha-H Graduate]

I'm at the same stage as you, just want to wish you good luck.

[Catey1978 Graduate in reply to Natasha-H]

Thank you Natasha-H, good luck to you too! I can't wait to graduate, so excited about how far I've come, its amazing isn't it!

[RainbowC Graduate]

Those are mean and nasty gremlins, ambushing you near the end like that. Can you change your route, so you don't get to the same point and think (consciously or subconsciously) 'this is where I struggle'...

Other things that work for me:

Body check. How do my legs feel? Not hurting? OK, that's fine, can keep going. What about my arms? Still moving? Ok, keep on. Breathing? Yup, still doing that (even if not quite as controlled as I might like!). Still alive then! So why don't I think I can do this? Just my brain. And it's not involved in running, so it doesn't get a vote!

Counting breaths. I do this all the time. Sometimes I count to 10, or 30, or 50. I know how many breaths I do in 5 mins at my normal running pace, so sometimes I aim for that target and just concentrate on the counting. Sometimes I do lots of mental maths - 5, that's 3% of the last five mins. Oh, nearly at 10 now, and that'll be 1/15th done. I can make it to 15, that's 10% etc. etc.

And sometimes I go through everything I can think of to distract myself from the running, or to get through another few seconds. Doing all of these takes a few more minutes, and that's often enough...

After all that... enjoy the running!

[Catey1978 Graduate in reply to RainbowC]

That's great advice, thank you. Body checks tell me it's only my brain doing the complaining. I'll definitely try the maths to keep my brain busy, sounds like a good plan

[Natasha-H Graduate]

Onto week 8, the only thing that's got me this far is thinking that stopping isn't an option!! I can only stop when the time's up...no other choices being stubborn helps:)))

[dddd4 Graduate]

I think RainbowC is right. It's the gremlins getting to you when you are tired and maths tricks sound like a good idea. I keep varying my route a little, that helps me.

[melly4012 Graduate]

You've heard it so many times before but when I reached those points towards the end of the run when the gremlins were telling me to stop I would slow down more with the thinking that if I would slow down for a minute, if I still needed to stop after a minute, I would slow down a bit more, etc etc. I would also just pick a spot ahead and think, 'well I'll just get to the bench and then I'll stop' then I'd get to the bench and think 'well I'll just carry on to the next lamp post' etc, etc. If I'd done the run before I knew I could physically do it so there was no excuses!

Well done for getting so far. Graduation day will be here before you know it!