Sunday 13 January 2013

B210k week 2 - my way

I did 2 runs for week 1 of the B210k - using my own music and a stop watch, then did a 3 mile run and a 2 miler before deciding to move on to week 2 on Thursday. 
 
 I know I should really have done a third week 1 run but I felt ready to move on.  
 
 It was a tough run, the weather was drizzly and my glasses kept getting misted. By the fourth 15 minutes I found that I needed to stop a couple of times - just for a few seconds, to get my breath back and dry my glasses - but I felt I could still count it as a fairly successful run.
 
 According to Endomondo I had done 4 miles in 46.24 but according to my stopwatch it was under 45 minutes.  I think this can be explained by the amount of time it takes to wake my phone, unlock it and pause Endomondo every time I stop running.
 
 The following evening I went for a shorter run with a friend and although we needed to stop and walk fairly regularly I actually ran my fastest 3 miles and 5k - 32.19 and 33.25 mins respectively - so I was really pleased.
 
 This evening Mr Locket persuaded me to get my running stuff on again - although I was very reluctant as it was so cold.  I decided to  deviate from the B210k plan again - I find that my mind plays a very important part in my ability to run - or not!  Going back to shorter intervals is very appealing as you know you are going to get a break before too long - but I know that I then start to doubt my ability to keep going for longer so I start to tell myself I can only run 10 minutes at a time, or 15 or whatever.  So today I decided to listen to Laura again on week 9 and do at least 30 minutes non-stop.  
 
 I had forwarded the podcast so that I didn't have to do the 5 minute warm up walk (naughty, I know, but Mr Locket never walks and I knew he would get cold quickly) but when I started Endomondo and the podcast it had gone back to the beginning so I decided to run through the 5 minute warm up walk and then go straight through the run so I would be doing 35 minutes - with Laura's encouragements always 5 minutes behind!  I carried on running through the warm down walk and then paused after 41 minutes - which is possibly the longest continuous run I've done,  3.60 miles.  We'd got home by this point but I wanted to get to 4 miles so we set off again and ran just under a mile, covering 4.56 miles in 52.36 minutes.
 
 Sorry this is such a long account - I couldn't fit it all in my running diary but I wanted to keep a record!!! ;o)
 
 What I'm trying to say - in short this time(!) - is that I'm going to sort-of follow the B210k plan but with my own variations as follows:
 
 * I'm not going to do it in 6 weeks - probably quite a bit longer
 * I'm not going to do all 3 B210k runs a week as it doesn't fit in with the other running I do(running with friends, going to running club etc)
 * I'm going to aim to do at least one "long" continuous run a week - at least 30 minutes without stopping, longer if I can manage - just so I don't forget how to run continuously!!
 * I will get to 10k eventually!

Saturday 5 January 2013

Bridge to 10k

Whoops! It has been a long time since I last posted - but I have still been running and had worked my way back up to running up to 30+ minutes but I just wasn't pushing myself any harder. This year I have signed up for a 10k run in April so having been inspired by some posts on the NHS C25K forum I decided to attempt the B210k.

Dot and I did week 1 run 1 on Thursday evening (4 x 10 minutes running with 1 minute walk in between) although we didn't use the podcast I'd downloaded and just timed the running with a stop watch and listened to our own music. Because of this we probably allowed ourselves a little longer than a minute between runs - but no more than 90 seconds.

By the fourth run I was definitely getting tired - although Dot didn't seem to be flagging at all! It had felt like we were going faster than normal earlier in the run but we definitely slowed down later in the run. I've just checked the stats and we did the first mile in 10.49 which is fast for me but the last mile was 12.33 - but there were occasions when we had to pause to let traffic go by and I wasn't super quick at pausing Endomondo each time.

When we finished we had covered 3.51 miles so decided to have a couple of minutes walk and then run an extra half a mile to make it up to 4 miles. I'm really pleased we did and we both felt very proud of ourselves - I can't wait for the next run!