Runaway....

but not right now, I'm hard pushed to walk let alone run at this moment in time. That's because today I did week 4 day 1 of C25K....... oh deary me. The voice told me as I was warming up that 'this is where it gets serious' - no kidding?! I have had quite an easy run (pun intended) so far and not really struggled with the program. Well I struggled today. I did it! but I struggled.

Week 4 sessions are a 5m walk to warm up as usual - then 3m run, 1m30s recovery, 5m run, 2m30s recovery then repeat - thatsTWICE as much running (16m in total!!) and only HALF the recovery!!

Half way through the first 3m run I thought I was going to die. It was hot, I had started off with the 'uphill' route (its a slight incline - but you can tell) and possibly gone off a little bit too fast. I adjusted my pace and pushed on to the end, and was thankful to find I recovered ok in the very short 1m30s recovery walk. Then the voice is telling me to run again - and this time its for 5 mins non stop. I had reached the level bit of path now and also ran onto the field at the end - running on the field can be a bit harder as the grass is getting a bit long, the track isn't that clearly defined and I sometimes fall in a hole, but today it helped as its much softer on your knees than than the hard path, and I was concentrating on not falling in a hole or tripping in the grass so the 5 mins went by quite quick! 2m30s recovery was great and I was ready to run again. Back on the path on the downhill section - turn half way and come back uphill - so half way through I really thought that was it - my lungs felt fit to burst and my legs felt like lead. I again adjusted my pace and concentrated on breathing properly and made it to the end of the 3mins. 90 secs recovery was NOT enough this time and I was still huffing by the time the voice instructed me to run once more - I was back on the field, on the level at the start and at about 2m30s I hit path again with a gentle decline, and I really checked my pace and concentrated on breathing and didn't feel as bad but when it came I was most definitely ready for her to tell me the 5 mins was up and to stop running.

So this session was hard. However lets not dwell on that - the important thing here is I DID IT!! I ran for 5 mins - not once but twice. I ran for a total of 16 mins in the session. I did not quit, I managed to do it all. Yay for me. I didn't HAVE to stop, but yes I wanted to!! - but I didn't stop and I ran right to the end of the session - I might hurt like hell now and feel like a wrung out dish colth but I DID IT!! Ok enough of the self-congratulation....

Roll on Saturday when I get to torture myself with W4.2 all over again....