That'll learn me - perhaps

[greenlegs]

Wk 4 run 1. Tough. But I don't think it need have been.

I think I'd got a bit too cocky with my last week 3 run. So today, instead of listening to my own advice about slow and steady, I started off with the warm-up walk as fast as I could go. In retrospect, daft. Then the first 3 minute run was uphill - so by then I was getting pretty down about the whole thing, and seriously considering stopping. If that was tough, how on earth would I do 5 minutes after only a short break?!

Kept going though, and then the first 5 minute run was still a bit uphill, and despite going really really slowly, it was sooo tough - but I didn't stop, just plodded on, focusing on one step at a time, and trying to distract myself thinking about posture etc (I've been reading Chi Running - not sure about the 'chi' bit, but the overall principles of running efficiently do make a great deal of sense to me). And I remembered a bit in the book, along the lines of a bad run being a good running lesson. So this was probably a good lesson, because it wasn't a very nice run at all! When Laura asked how I was feeling, I'm afraid that I told her in no uncertain terms.

The second half was marginally better, as it was mostly downhill. I do a circuit, but whichever direction I go in, it's uphill for the first half - I suppose the lesson is that I need to take that into account and not overdo it. (As I've been visiting family over the holidays, I haven't actually done this circuit very many times yet - otherwise I think I might have figured out where the hills were by now.)

Anyway, I didn't give up, and was really pleased when Laura pointed out that I'd run more than I'd walked - wow! Even if 'run' is a bit of a stretch of interpretation.

So I've learnt to listen to my own advice, pace myself especially with hills, and that I can push myself more than I thought. I've also now worked out how to upload my garmin tracks onto googleearth (my garmin isn't a runners one, it's an oregon, for hiking etc, so I can't use the runners downloading thing) and have now figured out how to view the pace and elevation graphs - cool! The running bits still look much the same as the walking bits, but I'm working on it.

[rolphie2 Graduate]

Well done for not giving up. We all have bad runs the trick is as you say to keep going and learn from them. Sounds to me like you did good Good luck with r2

[Deryn61 Graduate]

Well done for keeping going! We learn so much, and I think we learn more from tough runs than straightforward ones!

[oona Graduate]

You deserve lots of brownie points for completing your run. You obviously have a really strong mental attitude which I'm a bit jealous of! Best wishes for your next run.

[greenlegs Graduate]

Mmmmm! Strong mental attitude - well, only in some respects!

I may have kept going this morning, but I've spent far too much of the last couple of weeks on here (I've just noticed where I am on the 'top bloggers' list - oops!), or reading about running, instead of getting all sorts of other things done, and I was feeling a bit negative about that. So, thank you for reminding me that it's not all bad. Now I need to use that self-motivation to get started with the list of things I've been avoiding... Blogs sometimes only tell one bit of the story!

Thank you all for your encouragment. Knowing that others had kept going did really help me to not give up, so thank you graduates And tomorrow my challenge will be to motivate myself to do things totally unconnected with running!

[mdec Graduate]

Well you beat me

Congrats on week 4. I think it is a scary step up, so to nail it is great.