kamcm

Week 7 (15m run/2m walk)
A fairly scary jump in the running interval… Again, I just had to focus on lasting the run intervals, stuff the speed, I have time for that later. I was sort of surprised that I survived it, and incredibly proud that I had come so far. Only a few weeks before, I was struggling with 1min of running, now I was lasting 15!!! I suddenly realised that it was working, I was getting there, putting in the work was getting me the results.
I also found some exciting motivation when I stumbled across tv coverage of a triathlon. There was something really inspiring about seeing people going so damn strong, but still struggling. It even made me wonder what kind of athlete I’ll find within myself in the next months/years – maybe I have natural talent that’s been stifled by too much food. I have no idea how much potential I have – and I’m pretty excited to find out what I have and how far I can push it.
I know it sounds kind of grandiose, but I’ve already accomplished more than I thought I was capable of, and it just makes me feel so powerful, capable of pretty much anything, so long as I just keep chipping away at it :)

Week 8 (20m run/2m walk)
Another scary set of intervals… I did find that I struggled a bit this week – I just felt so tired and kept wanting to stop and take a break It took a lot of pushing to finish the intervals, but I was so proud when I did. I got particularly excited when I realised that was running more than half of the 5k before my walking break was due. I WAS MORE THAN HALF WAY!!!
I was actually running over 1.5 miles at a time, that’s a real distance, nothing to be sniffed at. I was confident that few non-runners would be able to do that. I may not be competing in London this summer, but I’m still an athlete in training. My body is fitter, going faster and further than it ever has before.
It was another extended week, though. It was really tiring, and I struggled to make it out on schedule. I had times when I thought I just couldn’t do it, but knew that I had come too far to let things slip. Again, I decided to add some more W8 runs to get me back in shape and ready to tackle week 9. 16 months ago

Weeks 4 & 5 (Intervals: 5m run/2m walk, 7.5m run/2m walk)
These were pretty exciting weeks, as I’d never made it to the 5min running intervals when trying C25K before. I was scared that it was some kind of natural limit for me and that I just amn’t physically capable of the full 5 mins. It was tough, the slightly hilly route really didn’t help the awful burning sensation in my calves. I kept wanting to just stop, but decided that I wouldn’t let myself fail and then give up. So, I went slowly – as slowly as it took to just keep going, the kind of slowly that felt slower than walking. It was really tiring, but I persevered.

I like to think that I kicked it’s butt more than it kicked mine.

Also, I had my first few run ins with other runners on the road. I felt embarrassing slow by comparison, but decided that it’s ok. I’m on a journey, some time ago they were too. No one is out there judging me, and if they do have any thoughts when they see me, I’d like to think they were along the lines of ‘Good on her! Slow and on the road beats the crap out of doing nothing.’

Week 6 (10m run/2m walk)
As this fell over the holiday period, it involved a lot of breaks and I had to repeat some days to get back in the groove. I was away for longer than expected over Christmas without my running shoes, and was fairly scared about coming back after a 3 day break. I really struggled with the first workout, and while I wanted to give up and go home half way through the first interval, I decided that I didn’t have to do all the running, Just walk the full distance to get me used to moving again, even putting some little bits of running in to help keep me warm. I was disappointed not to have done the full workout, but glad that I did some exercise and set myself up to do better next time.

I did all the intervals the next day, but my speed had gone down. I focused on being glad that I kept going, and decided to do 5 sessions of W6 to help me get back on track before upping my times again. I got my speed back up, and was surprisingly pleased that this little hiccup happened, as it showed that even when I feel like I’m going backwards and might despairingly just want to chuck it in, I just need to accept that these things happen, hunker down and keep going. 16 months ago

Weeks 1 & 2
Surprisingly tiring, it was kinda scary that I could find one minute running intervals so tiring and I found myself having to slow down to just keep going.
It took a bit of work to keep my head in the game. I was so disappointed in myself that I was so slow and found it so hard, but managed to hunker down and decided to work with what I have. Sure, I wish I weighed 140lbs and could run a 6 minute mile, but I don’t and I can’t – the only way to make it happen is to haul my 230lb frame around at 14 minutes per mile (and try to be grateful that weighing so much means that I burn quite a few more calories than a skinny person doing the same workout).
I seemed to veer between wanting to miss rest days between runs and wanting to miss runs altogether, but just decided to follow the program and be consistent. I didn’t want to get injured and I’m pretty high risk because of my size, so I took all the rest days and decided that running the intervals was enough. I don’t have to bust a lung to make progress.

Week 3
I finally moved from the relative seclusion of the car park to the actual road with real life human beings… It was kinda scary, but after a while I realised that people are not the least bit concerned about me, and for the most part they probably didn’t even notice me. Being out in public did sort of spur me on, though. It took a little while, but I managed to balance out not wanting to look slow with keeping a sustainable pace.

It was during week 3 that I went a bit off program and gained an exciting bit of new kit. There were some confusing/bad timings in the intervals podcasts I was using, so I download the free IntervalTimer app and used to mark times over my own music. At this point I also got curious about how far I was going and decided that I deserved a little running present for my efforts, especially if it was going to motivate me to keep going. I went into the shop looking for a decent pedometer and spotted the Nike+ sensor, an accelerometer that sends and saves various parameters (time/pace/distance/calories) and can display/verbally update you as your run, and can be uploaded online to let you keep track of you progress and analyse each workout.
As I already have an iTouch, all I needed was the sensor to get started, which worked out at a really similar price to a decent pedometer (however, if you don’t have the right iPod/iPhone you need some kind of kit to make it compatible, if you’re not an Apple fan you need the Sportsband/GPS watch, which does get rather expensive). I don’t have Nike+ compatible shoes with the special compartment and didn’t fancy spending money on them (or the overpriced pockets you can use to attach the sensor to your laces), so I just unpicked some stitches on the tongue of my shoe and popped the sensor in, before sewing it back up, good as new.
I know I sound a bit like a salesperson, but I did find it really motivating to be able to get so much info and real-time feedback, and just thought it was awesome to be able to do that with a little bit of kit that costs about the same as a good pedometer. Also, having evidence that I’m getting (the tiniest bit) faster is pretty awesome :)

I was finding that after my workouts I still had some fuel in my tank, so I decided to use the new app and toy to tweak the program to help me get a little more out of it. From this week on, I continued using roughly the prescribed interval times, but did more repetitions of the them until I completed a full 5k (taking around 50 mins). I think this gave me more of a workout without putting me under too much stress or at further risk of injury.

So, a bit of a weird week, but I think it worked for me :) 16 months ago

This may be a bit of a pre-emptive review, but it feels like I could do with a bit of a boost, so it seems a good time to look back over how far I’ve come.

This isn’t the first time I’ve attempted the C25K programme. Over the past four years I’ve had three stalled attempts at starting. The first two times I went for slightly overambitious early morning runs, not realising that I was running too fast, that while it was exhilarating, it wasn’t much use if I couldn’t finish the first 60 second interval, nevermind the whole session and was too discouraged to try again, convinced that I was just too heavy to run. The third time, I finally slowed down sufficiently by running indoors, and was incredibly proud of myself for making it into week 4, when I moved to a new area and had a lot less time on my hands. The programme slipped away, but at least I knew that I could do it, if I gave myself a break and didn’t push too hard.

Starting again this time was a bit of an accident… but a happy one. I was texting a friend about how reasonable the programme is, and when he asked me why I didn’t finish it. ‘Sod it, I’ll start tonight,’ I replied. I’d known for a long time that it was something I could and should do, but telling someone about it, knowing I would be asked how it was going over the coming days, was real motivation to actually get going.

Being fairly overweight (230ish lbs), I’m incredibly self-conscious when it comes to exercising in front of people, especially outdoors, so I knew I’d need a plan to get started and build some confidence before I hit the streets properly. I’d been thinking about starting C25K again for months, so I had already downloaded a batch of podcasts and scoped out a multi-storey car park next to my street. It was a reasonable size, good surface, quiet and safe; so in the evenings I could huff and puff, plodding along as slowly as I needed to without worrying about being overlooked.

That first run was harder than I’d expected it to be. I was disappointed at how tired I got during the 60 second runs, and how slowly I had to go to finish them. I was determined not to beat myself up though. All that mattered was that I did the time and finished the intervals, I had plenty of time to build up duration and speed, but it was only going to happen if I persisted. Besides, the slower I started, the more impressive my improvements would be 16 months ago

This may be a bit of a pre-emptive review, but it feels like I could do with a bit of a boost, so it seems a good time to look back over how far I’ve come.

This isn’t the first time I’ve attempted the C25K programme. Over the past four years I’ve had three stalled attempts at starting. The first two times I went for slightly overambitious early morning runs, not realising that I was running too fast, that while it was exhilarating, it wasn’t much use if I couldn’t finish the first 60 second interval, nevermind the whole session and was too discouraged to try again, convinced that I was just too heavy to run. The third time, I finally slowed down sufficiently by running indoors, and was incredibly proud of myself for making it into week 4, when I moved to a new area and had a lot less time on my hands. The programme slipped away, but at least I knew that I could do it, if I gave myself a break and didn’t push too hard.

Starting again this time was a bit of an accident… but a happy one. I was texting a friend about how reasonable the programme is, and when he asked me why I didn’t finish it. ‘Sod it, I’ll start tonight,’ I replied. I’d known for a long time that it was something I could and should do, but telling someone about it, knowing I would be asked how it was going over the coming days, was real motivation to actually get going.

Being fairly overweight (230ish lbs), I’m incredibly self-conscious when it comes to exercising in front of people, especially outdoors, so I knew I’d need a plan to get started and build some confidence before I hit the streets properly. I’d been thinking about starting C25K again for months, so I had already downloaded a batch of podcasts and scoped out a multi-storey car park next to my street. It was a reasonable size, good surface, quiet and safe; so in the evenings I could huff and puff, plodding along as slowly as I needed to without worrying about being overlooked.

That first run was harder than I’d expected it to be. I was disappointed at how tired I got during the 60 second runs, and how slowly I had to go to finish them. I was determined not to beat myself up though. All that mattered was that I did the time and finished the intervals, I had plenty of time to build up time and speed, but it was only going to happen if I persisted. Besides, the slower I started, the more impressive my improvements would be. 17 months ago

Happy days!
Now to find something cool to do until my job starts in July :)
Best of luck, folks!!! 18 months ago