This was my third run since this time last week, when I stopped talking about my eventual goal of running a marathon, and decided to get on with it, with the first goal of running a 5km. The quote in the title comes from my wife - this was her response when I told her that in total (ie, including the walking - and the 10/15 minute walk home) tonight, I had done 5.7km...
Trust me, I still have A LOT of work to do!
I found the first 5 minutes frankly bizarre. As a 24 yr old thin male I felt that I looked fitter than I am - I can imagine what people were thinking as I briskly walked by them in long t-shirt and thin leggings (hand-me-downs from my sister - the only thing I had when I went for my first run last week). But I started in the middle distance and kept the pace up. "hey", I thought, "i'm getting fitter here! they don't know that I'm just warming up!".
I started the 8 minutes at much the same pace as my previous two runs, realised this and slowed it right down. I felt my legs beginning to give way halfway through; and then Laura said "halfway through!!", which gave me a surge. Stupidly I decided to go uphill, which I was on for what FELT like forever, but in reality was only about 6 minutes. near the top I made it a goal to get up within the 8 minutes; which became an actual goal when Laura surprised and thrilled me by saying "ok, 60 seconds left!" so I upped the pace... and didn't make it by about 10 metres. Hey-ho.
5 minutes recovery was perfect time, but I was quite tired by the end of it and had only really recovered my breathing when it was time to go again.
The funny thing is, by myself I would not have gone again. But when there's someone in your ear you feel like it's the ONLY option... so off I went, heeding her advice to take it easy and steady. Again I felt my legs burn halfway through but as I focused on breathing that feeling left me; and again with sixty seconds to go I was nearly at the top of a road, so I made that my goal. I had crossed over and was a quarter of the way down when the 8 minutes ran out. Since I was not tired I carried on, stopping four minutes later, which totally surprised me, when I realised that since my last run I had just upped my total running time by double!! I think the trick was my pacing this time - 2 I was lightly jogging as opposed to, well, trying to run...
And then the long walk home... which was 1.54km... and took somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes...
All in all, I was thoroughly surprised with what I achieved - and the podcast DEFINATELY helped.
In total I ran 2.9km, which is .1km of a goal I had set myself to do by the end of the week (before finding out about this program). That's pleasing But I'd like to be able to do that 2.9km in one go... Maybe in Run 3 I could aim to do near 3km and see how I get on?
That's another thing that surprises me. I've never really been self-driven to do much in my life. And I thought that I would NEVER actually enjoy this running malark. But it IS achievable!!
When I work out how to make my run public, I'll post a link here...
Thankyou for reading