Week 6 day 3 was a 5 minute warmup walk, a 25 minute non stop run and a 5 minute cool down. I ended up going out this afternoon rather than this morning. I’ve found there are pros and cons to an afternoon run. There’s less pressure to be back in time for hubby to go to work, which is nice, but there are more people to see me staggering around, agony etched on my face. I also didn’t see nearly the amount of birdlife I usually do in the mornings. I was dive bombed by a couple of rainbow lorikeets today but usually I see a flock of yellow tailed black cockatoos (magnificent birds!), pale headed rosellas, long billed corellas and a cormorant or two.
Anyway, back to the task at hand. I must’ve really looked the part, I took my hubby’s Garmin running thingy which is a GPS and measures how far you go. I was a bit disconcerted last week when my cheap and nasty pedometer said I’d only run 1.5km, so I wanted to use something a little more accurate. Leggings, proper shoes, my mp3 player and now the Garmin. What a technophile. Funnily enough, although I’d been dreading this run all week, it wasn’t too bad. Hard, yes, but manageable. I even went up a little hill. My sore shin isn’t as sore any more, and the Garmin recorded that I’d actually run 3.5 or so km in the 25 minute run part, and at one time I’d even got over 10km per hour! I averaged just over 6 minutes per km.
So that’s week 6 done, and I’m feeling okay about the 4.5km Bridge to Brisbane in 5 weeks. Only have to go another 1.5km. I’m thinking of doing the Jetty to Jetty in about 4 weeks, it’s got a 3km run but I know the route, and it might be hilly.
Here’s the printout from the Garmin:
It wasn’t too cold up our way today, the wind hadn’t picked up and it was quite pleasant. I was really surprised to find the first 10 minutes easy, but the 3 minute walk was just too short. I made a mistake on yesterday’s post - it wasn’t actually a 5 minute walk between the two runs, but only 3 minutes, I didn’t find out until I got out there with the podcast. The last two minutes of the second 10 minutes was hard. I’ve got a sore shin on my right leg, it causes me to limp for my first couple of running steps, but I warm out of it very quickly. Hubby reckons it’s muscular and will ease as I go along.
I left my bumbag (fanny pack for our north American friends!) behind today and used a little armband with a pouch. It just had enough room for my mobile phone, door key, poo bags and my mp3 player. So much more convenient because my bumbag bounces each time I take a running step, and it starts to pull my earplugs out of my ears. I’ll be using this in future. Now all I need is a decent set of earplugs that don’t fall out.
The cold westerly winds persuaded me to stay in bed a little longer this morning and by the time I psyched myself into ‘just doing it’, my 2 year old daughter was awake and wanting to come with me.
I run with Jaydee, my 3 year old black and tan kelpie. He’s a fun, energetic dog and he practically drags me along behind him. While Jaydee and I started off on our run this morning, my hubby bundled up kids and bikes and headed off to the nearby playground. As I was huffing and puffing my way up the hills between home and the playground, the family drove by, cheering me on. I was very grateful that another car was following them and they had to keep moving. When I caught up with them I did laps of the playground until the podcast finally told me I could stop. It was hard for Jaydee as I could tell he just wanted to go and play with the kids but he kept plodding around with me without complaining. My husband informed me that, in his opinion, what I was doing was technically not called running. He thought it was more like waddling. He attempted to waddle with me but gave up after about a quarter of a lap of the playground. Where would I be without my dog?
I found the run challenging this morning. I was really needing the 5 minute walk after the first ten minute run so I don’t know how I will manage the 25 minute run which I will face on Sunday morning.
Yeah, I meant to start this blog when Roseanne and I started the couch to 5k program on but time got away from me. We decided to get a bit fitter, and what better way than to head out with our dogs, and get them a bit fitter too. I’m running with Sinner, a 2 year old red male Australian Cattle Dog. He’s very easy to run with, he just lopes along by my side, keeping pace with me. He’s very good company. My new pup is Guinness, a black and tan Australian Working Kelpie, but he’s only 14 weeks old so it’ll be a while before he’s on the road with me. He’s very leggy and athletic looking, and a very smooth mover, I think he’ll be a great running partner too.
So, we’re into week 6 of the C25k program, we’ve done our first fun run, only 2km, but we finished it in a respectable time of 12 minutes 15 seconds. Considering I was thinking of letting the ambulance officer know my blood group and next of kin before I started, I thought we did really well. Dogs can’t come in fun runs with us, but I’m thinking it’d be great to organise a fun run for people to take their dogs in, and make it a fundraiser for dog rescue groups.
Tomorrow I’ll be off on day 2 of week 6. It’s chilly in the morning and hard to get out but Sinner enjoys it, and that’s what gets me going. I’m not sure what he thinks of it, he’s used to running 12km with my hubby, so my meagre effort doesn’t seem quite enough to him. The plan for tomorrow is a 5 minute warmup walk, then 10 minute run, 5 minute recovery walk, 10 minute run and a 5 minute cool down walk. Sounds manageable, but trying not to think of day 3, which is 25 minute run. Argh.
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