*Disclaimer- not following the couch25K plan as recommended*
I was warned about this one, by the people on the forum and I can see why it might catch you out, especially as this was a Monday run and like Sir Bob, I don't like Mondays either. I didn't find W6 R1 as interesting but I did notice that I was concentrating more on running rather than 'surviving' and 'gasping' and 'swearing', so in that sense you feel the improvement, as you are more in control of what you are doing. Started with a dead slow pace because I really wasn't feeling it today, but as usual after about ten minutes you end up going on auto pilot and just running rather than thinking.
I'm in no particular hurry to run long periods non stop either ( I mean the non stop periods in the initial 9 weeks) but its goodbye to the 5 minute runs now for the duration of this couch25K plan anyway.
I wasn't focused on time due to a heavy weekend and focused on just managing to run the longer periods and this time I was able to view distances with a different perspective, so rather than thinking 'how am I going to get to the end of this stretch and to the bridge or the oak tree', I was just running it , so the course or the track gets smaller. That's progress. Looking at what's left I think if anything will catch me out it will be Week6 run 3, and that would probably due to overconfidence or getting the pace wrong so it shows that above all else you need to 'find your own stride', but the good thing about this course is there is no shame in repeating runs.
Ran / Walked 5k in 42 minutes,
I followed the plan and still had some puff so after following it I ran two 10 minute periods which took me more or less to 5K. If I hadn't run them I would just have to walk them anyway to get home.