Hi everyone,
First off thanks so much to everyone on here for making this such an encouraging environment. Without this forum I doubt I would have gone past about Week 2. Just finished running W5R3, man was it a challenge, but I got there!
I’ve never considered myself a runner or even considered the possibility I could be one. At school I came last in just about every sport under the sun so that didn’t set me up for success... Then my wife convinced me to get a Personal Trainer at the end of last year, because she’d had such a great success with her’s and when that became cost prohibitive I decided I needed something else to keep me active and then I found C25K.
Starting wasn’t easy, I tried to do C25K a few years ago but had to stop because I did everything wrong! I ran too fast, I wore the wrong shoes and it got to the point where I couldn’t walk down stairs my shins hurt so much. That being said I got through the first few weeks of my second attempt and then Week 5, did the first run, then the second and then I realised the time had come.
I read every forum post about it, but still was a nervous wreck. Add to that the heatwave we’re in I had serious doubts if I could do it or not. I tossed and turned as I tried to sleep, not really knowing whether I wanted to sleep so I could start the run faster, or not sleep to savour the time before I had to do it.
Eventually, after sleeping a bit, I got up, put on my running shoes and got outside. I set up Strava, flicked on the app and started running. At first it was ok, and when Laura said I had already run for 5 minutes I was thrilled, maybe this isn’t as hard as I thought it was...
So I kept going. I hit 10 minutes. Now I was beginning to feel it and my mind started telling me I’d hit a wall, running 8 minutes continuously was hard enough, but I kept going. Then 15 minutes and I was really beginning to flag, but I knew I had the Superman (1978) theme in my playlist to push me through the last 5 minutes. Then disaster! In my haste to set up my playlist I didn’t add it at all! My playlist skipped to my cooldown songs instead! I fiddled with my phone, and it flicked onto “Just Live More” a theme tune from a Japanese TV Show I love. The first line of the song is “Don’t Say No, Just Live More” and just at that point I wanted to give up, but the song kicked in and pushed me forward for the last 3 minutes.
When Laura said it was time to stop I threw both my hands up in the air like Rocky not quite able to believe what I’d done. “20 minutes?!?” I thought. “No way... did I just do that?” And then my mind started being filled with doubt “Maybe it was a fluke, maybe the app broke and you ran much less?” But I pushed all that aside and walked the last 5 minutes feeling on top of the world at 6.30am.
Wow that ended up longer than I thought... all that to say, if you’re stressing about W5R3, don’t. It’s a run, like any other and YOU CAN DO IT. Onwards and upwards to Week 6 and graduation next month. 5K, here I come.
w5r3 in the bag! I did it! (my way)
W5R3 - Can't believe I enjoyed it
W5R3: I did it!!!!
W5R3... well that was a little more than I was expecting
W5R3 - I did it!
