Well, I eventually woke up, the rain eventually stopped but sadly the ex-crow was still sprawled across the pavement - hurdled him expertly though. Maybe it'll become my official starting marker. Or a mascot. I wonder which one of us will fare best after 6 weeks. Me or the rotting carcass?
Yesterday I was setting myself up to quit. I was beginning to think I wasn't improving. I wasn't feeling any fitter and thought; if I was told to run for three minutes on Week 1, I'd have probably just semi crawled it with exactly the same speed and exhaustion as I did on Monday. I was almost giving up on this whole thing. The novelty of being outside moving a bit was beginning to wear off.
But! I think today is the first time I've actually noticed an improvement. And there was this fleeting nanosecond of almost Gump-like zen running, a brief moment of some kind of jogging serenity during that initial manic 90 second bout. Which was quickly replaced by familiar feeling of sore shins and exhaustion for the rest of the session.
At the end of the second three minuter I wasn't so out of breath. I even tried to push it a little more and carried on... for 6 more steps, but still.
Next week's five minutes doesn't feel quite so daunting.