main

C25KRunning

C25K – Week 4 – Run 3

23rd June 2018 — 0

Amazing, the “easiest” run I’ve done so far in the program. I decided to go the local park at the top of my road, the place I run when I’m feeling more confident about putting on a public performance. I had some concerns being a sunny Saturday the park would be packed, which of course it wasn’t. I mostly have the World Cup to thank for that I suspect. No other runners, usual smacking of dog walkers, lots of kids in the play park, in summary a whole bunch of people who don’t give a f*** about a middle aged jogger.

I’ve definitely found a running rhythm, it might be a bit of a shuffle and it’s only slightly quicker than my normal walking pace, but it’s something I’m starting to believe might be sustainable. I managed to hold my form for the whole of the second 5 minute run, the biggest benefits being far less fatigue/pain and a recovery time on par with Kaiser Soze.

So I finished week 4 strong, I am truly gob smacked, from where I was at the end of Monday’s run. It didn’t require all the mental gymnastics of earlier runs, I was simply focussed on using as little energy as possible pretty much the whole run, with very few negative thoughts sneaking in, no interrogation. My playlist was fairly uninspiring and I don’t think I even payed it that much attention. Physically the legs at times where getting heavy, the odd pang of nausea (couldn’t have lasted a few seconds) towards the end of each 5 minutes run.

Needless to say I didn’t get much into the cool down walk home without thinking about the fact next week is the dread week 5, with the insane 20m run on run 3. I’ve triple checked it’s not a typo. As with every week even the next run (2x8m) doesn’t seem doable. To extend my 5 minute record by 3 minutes, seems unrealistic, to do it twice just insanity. There will need to be a Matrix moment, I look forward to Laurence Fishburne chiming in with “Do you think that’s air you’re breathing?” at some point in the week. Something is going to have to click, there must be a point my running rhythm becomes sustainable. Fingers crossed.

Before today’s run was I was seriously going to re-run week 4, maybe extend the second run to 6, 7 and 8 minutes each session. To get there a bit slower. But given the clear improvement in just this week, I’ve decided to keep the faith and trust the program. I’d rather try and fail, I haven’t failed a run yet. But I’m under no illusions I’ve got 4 minutes booked in the interrogation room again on Monday … “Mrrrrr ANDERson, we missed you”.

Run Rating : 

Leave a Reply

%d bloggers like this: