Monday, September 16, 2013

Couch to 10k - Week 10 session 1 (repeated)

Session 1 - 72 min. Run 10 minutes/walk 1 minute. Run 20 minutes/walk 1 minute. Run 30 minutes.

My last training report talked about how the surprise awful weather prevented me going out until Wednesday evening, and I talked about doing session 2 on the following Friday.

It didn't quite happen like that.  I wanted to go out both Thursday and Friday but leaden legs prevented anything happening on Thursday, and general tiredness combined with leaving for a weekend away in Edinburgh prevented me getting up in time to go out on Friday morning.  I considered taking my running gear away for the weekend and fitting in a session or two in Scotland, but two things stopped me:

1) the trip away was intended as a celebratory break for me and my boyfriend so buggering off for a couple of hours seemed very rude.
2) I don't want to go running somewhere I am unfamiliar with.  I could easily get lost and that is a scary thought.

So I hope you all can forgive me for not doing any running this weekend.  We walked a lot instead.  We were on out feet most of the day, visiting the castle, museums, climbing up Arthur's seat and wandering around the Old Town.  It was fun.  But oh boy did my legs feel sore each morning!

Anyway we returned home today and I decided to start week 10 again.

Today was kind of hard - my chest felt very heavy and breathing wasn't quite so easy, so I suspect I may be coming down with a cold.  Curses.  I don't mind (too much) repeating one week but I don't want to miss or delay any other sessions.  A friend said they would sponsor me if they ran up Gas Hill, the steepest hill in Norwich and site of the annual Gas Hill Gasp.  I attempted this today - I nearly did it, but about 1 minute away (running) from the top it was too hard and I walked the rest of the way.  I will keep this hill in my route until I have managed to run up it.

When I first started running it was the height of Summer.  It was so hot.  Now it is Autumn.  I didn't get rained on today, thankfully, neither did I get cold (exercise does warm you up!) but there are loads of leaves on the ground and the air is definitely nippier.  I joined a gym again last week so if the weather continues to be awful I shall go run indoors instead.  That will be  very very boring but it will keep my training up.

I plan to do my 10k race around the RSPB's Lakenheath Fen reserve on 19th October.  I have 4 weeks of the training programme left to do and 5 weeks until that race.  The week just before the race I will be away with work and although I'd like to try to fit a short practice run in, that could prove quite hard.

I am fairly sure that I could run 10k now - I was running for 60 minutes today going a little bit slower than 6 miles per hour.  Today I covered 6.32 miles which is just over 10k, but you need to remember that 13 minutes of that was walking, so I was probably only running for 5.5 miles.  However, apart from the heavy chest, today felt OK.  So yes, I could probably run 10K now, but I want to finish the programme.

I already feel quite bad about not doing much last week, which is where the sponsors come in - I've raised £176 of my £200 target so I *need* to finish the training.  If I skipped a week, or didn't finish the programme, I would feel unworthy of the sponsorship.  So everybody, I am so, so sorry I didn't manage much training last week.  I will finish this programme, I promise, and I will do the Lakenheath race.

Summary of funds raised:
£33 from me, £143 from sponsors, £35.75 in gift aid.  Including gift aid, that's £211.75 which is amazing.  I would really like to get the total up to £200 without gift aid, so please consider giving me a few quid.

All money goes to the Abortion Support Network (ASN) who help Irish women access safe, legal abortions in England.  You can support them by sponsoring me, or you can give direct to ASN by a one off bank transfer, or by setting up a regular standing order.  See here for details on how to do this.

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