Any sound more delightful than waking up to gently pattering rain? Not when you've promised yourself that you'll do run 1 week 8 at 7am. And not when the rain isn't pattering, more splashing loudly and joyfully everywhere. My delightful other half said, from the deep confines of the bed, that if it were him he'd get up and run now (I've gotten him doing the programme as well, but he did his run yesterday). So I get up, and look out of all the windows to see if the rain looks any better from any other angle. Nope. "You'll regret it if you don't do it!" the bf murmurs when I try and come back to bed. Dammit, he was right.
Out I went. I had the distinction of being the only runner in the whole park for the first 20 minutes... normally there are tons of people looking much fitter and more professional than me jogging away. So I had the park to myself, and the many ducks, and felt quite pleased to be out. There's simply no way I would have gone out in such heavy rain a few months ago, let alone to run for 28 minutes! And I think, in a way, the rain helped. The first 10 minutes I really felt (and also, what is with the one song mid-way through week 8... it's about some demon creature coming to get you, "you can run, you can't hide" etc.... awful!) but by the time I got halfway I was in my stride. What makes me really pleased is that I literally didn't notice 9 minutes' worth of run - when Laura said I only had 5 minutes left, I was genuinely surprised! I also had to turn around sharpish and leg it back as I was riiiiight at the other end of the park.
When I started this programme I had a massive hiccup at week 3 where I basically stopped for 2 weeks. I only started again because we had that spell of gorgeous weather and it was so nice to be out in the mornings. The best thing that this programme has done for me is making going out in the rain something that I will do - even if I need a little prod to do it!