Sorry Laura it's time to part ways!

[ange123]

Oh dear I've been terribly lazy over Christmas. I haven't been for a run for at least 3 weeks - I'm not going to work it out properly, it would just horrify me.

What's done is done so I decided tonight was the time to get my wobbly butt back outside. Technically I should have done w8r3 tonight, but with such a long gap it was a toss up between starting week 8 all over again, or just throwing some music on and running for 30 minutes and being done with it. I chose the latter.

I think part of the reason for me not running lately was boredom. I'd got in the habit of running the same tedious route through fear of failure - I knew I could run for up to 28 minutes on that particular route and any change to the route could have resulted in failure, a bit like wearing lucky pants for a job interview I guess!

Laura's been wonderful and has got me this far and I'm eternally grateful don't get me wrong. But tonight was the time to part company and set myself free of the rubbish music and wishing she'd tell me there's only 1 minute to go. So I left the house with Endomondo tracking my run and Spotify playing some of the latest tunes. It was pretty damn hard, having been so lazy recently, and I encountered the occasional up hill section (more down hill than up though I must confess!). But I battled on to the end and

*drumroll please*

I ran for 30 whole minutes for the first time in my entire life!

I seriously need to cut myself some slack - I was disappointed that my average mile time was 40 seconds slower than my best. Hold on a little second...I ran for 30 minutes what am I complaining about??

I covered 4.2k in 30 minutes. Last time I ran I covered that exact distance but in 28 minutes, so I've clearly got a bit worse through my festive laziness. But to hell with it. I managed 30 minutes, and if I can just cast my mind back to August when I started this plan (yes I know it's taken me far longer than 9 weeks, but I'm getting there), when I couldn't run for 60 seconds and the step up to 3 minutes seemed like some kind of sick joke...well I'm pretty happy that I can run for half an hour, all be it slowly.

So my promise to myself is that I run 3 times a week and hopefully I'll soon be covering the full 5k in 30 minutes. Graduation is only 2 runs away!

[Maggymay]

Well done...I'm back to it tomorrow after far too long a break!

[Bxlkl]

Ouah! Congrats! It's not easy getting back to it after a break and it's just too tempting to let it slide completely so good for you for getting back out there and doing a whole 30 minutes to boot! I too have broken up with Laura, the music just was dragging me down... But I am eternally grateful to her for bringing me up to the uninterrupted runs

[MaryDerry Graduate]

Yes, well done! You could so easily have stayed on that couch! I too am thinking about trying to get my own music to run to. I need to spend some time making a new play list. I will have to run in place in front of the computer to see if it is good running music. Glad there are no hidden cameras in the study! Well done and keep going.

[Fingalo Graduate]

A terrific achievement Ange, you are being hard on yourself.

I tend to shy away from reading the blogs of those who are ahead of me on the programme as it strikes fear into me when it's mentioned how long you have to run for but I was drawn to this one and I'm glad I read, it because it has inspired rather than discouraged me.