Week 5 Day 1

Weather - Cloudy turning wet, 12.1 degrees C
Time - 5.30am

Welcome to week 5 of my journey, and what an interesting week it looks set to be. From this week on, running times increase sharply to 20 minutes at the end of this week, 25 by the end of next week, 28 two weeks later, and 30 minutes in the final week. By the end of next week there will be no walking breaks at all for the rest of the programme, and the activity over the next two weeks is designed to consolidate on the first day, expand on the second day and go all-out on the third day. So today's schedule actually reduces last week's running times by 1 minute overall but, by replacing two three-minute runs with one five-minute run (and losing the extra recovery walk) the three five-minute intervals today actually feel like harder work.

The weather was lousy again, but I set off undaunted. It took a long while to get loose, which I think was probably due to the new shoes. It will take a while for them to break in, but I think a lot of it is down to how heavy they are (they call them "The beast" with good reason, they weigh 800g as a pair). The upside of this extra weight was that I didn't feel a single twitch from my ankle the whole time I was running. So, take it from me, if you want to start running get measured up for a new pair of shoes BEFORE you start. If you don't, you're risking injury.

I also forgot my inhaler today. Actually, I'm fibbing; I lost it and decided I could do without. In the physical sense I was correct, but I did miss my little psychological crutch. The run itself was ok, and I class it only as ok because it's very hard to focus on the first run this week. When you're fully aware, as I am, that you'll be running two eight-minute runs on Wednesday, and one twenty-minute bad boy on Friday, it seems quite difficult to get the focus together for three sets of five.

And the strange thing is, despite this apparent lack of motivation, that I ran really well this morning according to the stats from the Garmin. I actually averaged a pace of just over eight-minutes per mile - even during the final interval, which is, frankly, outrageous. It certainly didn't feel like that, especially during the last interval. Who am I to argue with technology? Nevertheless, I will be slowing down considerably for the longer distances later in the week.

Tomorrow I'll be posting my first work-out from the one hundred push-up/ crunch challenge and, later in the day, I'll be posting my weight update. I must've lost something, if only the precarious grip on my sanity :-)