Week 8: I think I'll finish the programme! (I'm at least 75% sure of it)

[venturieta]

Week 8 started quietly. In the first day I did 28 minutes without major problems. It was on that day that I thought: and if I change my route a little? There are streets in my neighborhood that I really don't know well, why not explore? That's what I decided to do on the second day.

As I told you in my previous post, W8D2 had everything to be perfect. The afternoon was bright, I was feeling good and fairly confident (big mistake?). I was listening to an interesting podcast, my pace was good and I didn't feel tired at all. I was thinking that running was making me happy again - week 7 was especially challenging in the sense of enjoying the exercise, and I was genuinely happy to see that my mood were better ... and then, somewhere in the last five minutes I tripped, fell and sprained my foot.

That was last Monday. I was so upset, especially for getting hurt 1) so close to the end and 2) out of sheer distraction.

Since then I have been putting on ice packs, applying ointments and taking scandalous amounts of ibuprofen.

Today was the first day that I felt I could try running again. I was afraid of hurting myself, and I was especially concerned about the effects of that week off: could I finish the 28 minutes of jogging?

Well, actually I could. And I did. But it was SO HARD.

The first ten minutes were torture. I had already seen several people talking about the toxic 10, but I still hadn't really felt the impact of having barely started the exercise and wanting to give up and go home. Then it got a little easier, but when the app warned me that I was halfway through, I despaired - I was tired after only 14 minutes! I was looking at the time remaining, and I was practically counting the seconds to the end of the session (not my proudest run). I lost about 250m of the distance I was doing in total (4.5 km, counting about 1 km which is not exactly running, but the distance corresponding to five minutes of warmup and five minutes of cool down), which annoyed me, but what really matters is that I managed to finish.

I thought about repeating week 8 again, but as the recommendation is to finish 3 sessions before moving on to the next week, which I did - even with a sprained foot, which was really not smart of me - on Tuesday I will try to reach 30 minutes.

I'm so close to graduation that I can't believe it. If someone has a spare time machine at home, could you please return to my first week post (it was in early March - adjust your displays, time travelers!) and let me know that, just over two months then, am I about to run for 30 minutes straight? It's unbelievable. I didn't think I had it in me.

[SweatyHettie Graduate]

You’ve got this! Well done for pushing through👏🏼👏🏼🏃🏼‍♀️🏃🏻🏃‍♂️

[Mowtown2020]

Well done for your perseverance! I am only in week 3 and found run1 hard! so I have a very long at to go and can’t imagine getting there to be honest!

[venturieta Graduate in reply to Mowtown2020]

I know that feeling VERY well, trust me. The first intervals of jogging are so hard that you think that the last weeks are impossible. But, really: they're not. I had so little faith in me in the beggining and yesterday I couldn't wait any longer: I just had to run. What you are doing now is preparing you for bigger challenges, don't ever underestimate that (like yours truly here). Let's keep pushing through. Good luck!

[Nicolegee Graduate]

Well done, I think you’ve got this.

Yesterday I did my first run of week 8. My first 10 minutes were awful and the rest was not that much better. I changed my route a little bit and ended going uphill and went from slow to snail pace but I finished it and like you I’m still on track. Keep going we’re going to graduate.

[venturieta Graduate in reply to Nicolegee]

Yes we will! And we're also gonna get shine new badges! (I love a badge, even If a virtual one). We're almost there. 🏅