W5R1 - Not my finest (half) hour.

[Farmelle]

I'm an asthmatic programmer by day and a couch potato by night, so I never thought I would get anywhere with C25K. I first ran W1R1 in late 2010. After nearly keeling over in the office because I a) didn't have my inhaler on me and b) realised that I had left it at home when I got back to the office, didn't continue it at the time. I left the podcasts on my iTouch with the aim of going back to it, but life got in the way and it got forgotten.

A short time ago I had a wakeup call. My fiancee and I recently discovered, to our delight, that she is pregnant with our first. Around about the same time, a childhood friend, only three years my senior, died suddenly from a heart attack at the age of 39. It's a sobering thought that you can be taken from your family so early. So after a few weeks of deliberation I decided to give W1R1 another try, this time with my inhaler in my pocket and things went much smoother.

The weeks have sailed by. There have been good weeks and not so good weeks. I run at the local country park as the 5 minute warm up ends right at the start of the first meadow. Some days finishing the last run has been hard, other days I've messed up a route and ended up tacking a bit extra on. W3R1's last 3 minute run ended up as 4 minutes and then another 2 minute run after a 3 minute walk. OK, I was gasping at the end of it but that's all good right?

I made several mistakes today. I did W4R3 on Saturday and it was a walk in the park. I even pushed an extra minute on the last run for good measure. Later in the day I had issues with a persistent shoulder injury and spent 5 hours in A&E on Sunday because of it. It had been in a sling for two days, but I really didn't want to break schedule and it's not really hurting now. I figured that it would be fine. W5R1 is less jogging than W4R3 so it's got to be easier, right?

So, sling off, jogging gear on, 30 seconds down the road and remembered that I water bottle was still back on my chair. Ran back for it, iTouch comes out of my pocket and crunch! Fortunately it's only scratched up, screen didn't take the hit (few). So got my water bottle and started off on attempt #2. I was using the same route at W4R3 pretty much. I got into the first run and found it really rough going. Found myself thinking "this must be almost over now!", then on comes Laura with "that's half way...". I was totally mortified but managed to carry on some how. I made it to the end of the run but I was SO tired. It's the most demorolised I've been on any run segment. The middle run started better, but ended the same. The last was as harder than the first as it's uphill for the last 2 minutes.

It feels like I've gone backwards today because I was expecting it to be like last week and that has me worried now. Cought myself thinking things like "in 2 runs, at this point I will still have 8 minutes to go and I won't have had a break. That's longer than any run you've done this far." and "You were tired after 2 minutes, how will you ever manage 20?!" I knew I was stressing about W5R3 anyway, but this has only compounded the issue. I don't know if it was because I've been weekend by the shoulder injury or if it was just one of those runs. Only time will tell I guess.

On the bright side, my shoulder is well on the mend. Every cloud!

[doggymum Graduate]

Hey, head high, chest out & SMILE - YOU DID IT!!

Sometimes we don't think we have done very well, but look how far you've come... could you imagine pushing yourself to do that a few weeks ago?? I know when I started out I wouldn't have believed I could do it. I have always loathed exercise and as a consequence my backside is nearly the width of the sofa!

Don't worry about the 20 minute run - one podcast at a time. You have to trust the programme, it will get you through. YOU CAN DO THIS!

Happy running

[glendam52 Graduate]

Well done you are doing great as doggy mum says just 1 day at a time.

We all panic about w5r3 but its never as bad as we thought.