Bye Bye Week 6, Hello Week 7!

[LeeU]

Well, I never would have thunk it was possible, me at the beginning of Week 7 of a 9 week running program!

I must admit, when I first stepped onto the treadmill this morning I was a little stern with myself as I really want to go outside and run but my pace is all over when I'm not on the treadmill, I'll work on that though.

When the 5 minute walk was over and I started jogging I was as if I couldn't get into my space, you know where you are comfortable. That start a little bit of a flap if I'm honest, I started thinking that trying to run outside yesterday may have affected me and that my head was going to spoil the run.

Here's the BUT, and in every great story there is a but, I gave myself a quick talking to I explained to myself that the treadmill was stamina and fitness work and outside running will become the norm when I'm fit enough and have the stamina to run at the pace my body thinks it can run at. I seemed to accept this as I then settled down and completed the full 25 minutes, I did slow a little towards the end but I was surprised by the fact that I did slow as much as I did on W5R3 and that was only 20 minutes jogging.

I did find out an old Domiyos running top from when I was trying to run about 4-5 years ago, it was a little snug but I thought I'd try it, big mistake, 13 or so minutes in, I took it off, mid-stride as I felt I was getting too hot. My neighbours will no doubt be psychologically scarred from seeing me run topless on the treadmill, we your honour, I wasn't totally topless, I was wearing a heart rate monitor

Max heart rate through-out was 164bpm.

Here's to you all, the support has been and will continue to be the driver that keeps me going (plus my shiny new Garmin in 9 more runs!!!!).

[Oldfloss Administrator Graduate]

You are doing amazingly and you are going to be out there soon...Unless you get arrested for inciting revolt in the Gym.... topless on the treadmill indeed!!!

What are you like!

Go you... keep it as ever steady and slow.. it is all waiting for you

[LeeU Graduate in reply to Oldfloss]

Lol, thanks OldFloss, the badge at the side of your name should all be in capitals, you are an inspiration.

[Kimchoc08 Graduate]

Well done 👍🏼 what a superstar you are!! I hope WK7 will be kind to you 😊

[LeeU Graduate in reply to Kimchoc08]

You know what Kim, after W5R3 nothing in the program bothers me now, W6R3 was 25 minutes, W7 is just W6R3 three times over, W8 is an extra 3 minutes and week 9 is only an extra 2 minutes on top of that!

To be honest, I really wanted to push on from 25 minutes and just continue jogging through the cool down walk to see if I could do 30 minutes as I know it's all mental now.

I'm not saying it'll be a challenge but to be honest, there's a typo in my post above, I actually found 25 minutes EASIER than 20 minutes and I think that's were the mental part comes in PLUS I'm covering the time on the treadmill so I honestly don't know how long I'm running for until Laura tells me.

Good luck with W6, you won't need it, you are doing brilliantly, your daughters should be proud of you.

[Irishprincess Graduate]

It is hard to get your pace right when transitioning from the treadmill to outside. I did most of the programme on a treadmill and this is what I had to work on the most when I moved outside.

The secret is to run really, really slowly. Slower than you think you need to. Also, try alternating your runs. So, try one run outside and the other two on the treadmill, then increase that to two runs outside, etc,

But wherever you run, well done on getting through to this stage 🙂

[LeeU Graduate in reply to Irishprincess]

Thanks IrishPrincess, to be honest, I was a little deflated to start with when I tried it BUT as above, I'll just use the treadmill to get my fitness and stamina levels to where I can run at the pace my body thinks it wants to run at, I'll do it, it won't be next week or maybe even next month but I will do it.

I think I'm going to restart the entire program once I graduate and jog the walking sections and run the others (obviously I'll walk the warm up and cool down walks). I'll do 2 runs a week like that and the other one I'll add 10% distance per week and use that to build stamina.

My first priority is the Graduate badge, that's what I've set my goal on first, I'd love to do a Park Run before X-Mas but I won't beat myself up too much if I don't hit this until the next year to be honest, my intermediate aim is 5k in 30 minutes, the pace my body wants to run at is nearly that kind of pace.

7 weeks ago I was struggling to run for 60 seconds so I'm exceedingly happy with my progress.

Thanks again for the advice, knowing other people have managed this and how they did it is always good to hear

[Irishprincess Graduate in reply to LeeU]

Sounds a great plan 🙂